


Gulvas Mansion

by Laetitia_Laetitii



Category: Runescape
Genre: Character Death, Child Abuse, Crafting for the love of fic, Finished, Gen, Graphic Injury, Missing Presumed Death, Quest fic, Violence, broken home, diary format, ghost story, headcanons, lots and lots of characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-21 12:06:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 32
Words: 35,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11943840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laetitia_Laetitii/pseuds/Laetitia_Laetitii
Summary: This is the tale of the events leading up to the quest Broken Home, told in the form of Ingram's diary.A man moves to an isolated, old mansion, his ancestral seat, where long, long ago something horrible happened. As time passes, he begins to notice that...you know the drill.Also starring Aileen Westbrook's mad editing skills, Father Ivan's murder mysteries, and my unashamed love for grand old houses.





	1. Editor's Foreword

 

               Editor's Foreword

 

                The old Gulvas Mansion perches on the precipice of the southernmost one of the two rocky hills that form Silvarea Pass. It is an odd place for a house of its size and splendour —remote, hard to access, with a view of a long-abandoned stone quarry and a desolate, overgrown gorge.

                By itself it is an amazing piece of King Botolph architecture, a half-timbered affair with two wings and a three-storey tower, and despite the location, one would think that a wealthy merchant might take a fancy to its air and oak wainscoting. But for all its magnificence, the manor has been unoccupied for most of its history, and enjoys a reputation for changing ownership cheaply and frequently.

                It has something to do with the site, the proximity of the river. It has something to do with the queer folklore that surrounds the lowlands east of Varrock, and the odd bones and rusty weapons that used to turn up in the fields of the farmers who dared settle there. But most of all, I think it has to do with something that happened a long time ago, right after the house was built.

                Having lived intermittently in Varrock for years, I was of course familiar with the story of mad Ormod Gulvas, who in a fit of insanity butchered his entire domestic staff before taking his own life. However, unlike many of the city’s old wives’ tales, this one had never become pertinent to my work or interests, and consequently I had not studied it further.

                So, when in the first summer of the Sixth Age I agreed to investigate certain strange events that had recently taken place at Gulvas Mansion, I was only remotely familiar with the estate’s history, but knew enough for it to arouse my curiosity.

***

                My involvement in the case happened through pure chance.

                During my wandering years I had passed the mansion many times, on my way to and from Morytania, but had paid little attention to it. It had always been in miserable condition; the diamond-paned lancet windows dark, the gable roof a patchwork of missing tiles and moss. Grass spouted in the cracks of the bifurcated front stairs, and the one time I had on a whim gone to the trouble of ascending them, I had found the door double-padlocked, with rotting leaves piled high against it.

                Then, one dark and stormy night in year one I was at the Jolly Boar Inn, when a hysterical young woman was brought in, drenched to the bone and barely aware of her surroundings. The soldiers escorting her had found her wandering in the rain, and had recognized her as a maid from the mansion. In my absence, I was told, the house had acquired a new master —one Ingram Golves, a descendant of Ormod’s — who since the previous year had been engaged in the task of restoring it.

                Once we had got the poor girl somewhat warmer and calmer, she managed to relate to us that she had fled some kind of an intruder. It was a tale too incoherent and nonsensical to repeat here, but she made repeated allusions to others being in danger as well.

                Unable to gauge further details from her, we — myself, the soldiers, and the ragtag lot of expendables who constitute Jolly Boar’s regular crowd — decided that the situation ought to be investigated. Somehow, though not unexpectedly, the lot fell on me. So, as the others continued to discuss sending for help, I slipped out into the unrelenting rain, and started for Silvarea.

***

                Two days later, on the morning of the 14th of Pentember, a group of city guards from Varrock entered Gulvas Mansion to discover both its new owner and his entire staff dead. After a coroner inspected the bodies shortly thereafter, the cause of their deaths was ruled to be poisoning. Apparently, they had been killed by gases emanating from the recently reopened sub-basement. I myself was the one to propose this theory (having been the one to find the corpses first), and no-one contested it. The unharmed state of the cadavers and the strange smell lingering in the house supported it, after all, as did certain notes in Ingram’s journal, which frequently referred to a “strange white mist” rising from the ground. Furthermore, there were no competing ones.

                The coroner and I speculated a bit on the type of gas and its possible effect on the nerves. It was clear that it affected the brain somehow, since the only survivor —the maid, still in shock at the time — had reported seeing fantastic monsters before fleeing the house. What’s more, there was a number of suicides among the dead — including the cook, who had thrown herself in the heating furnace in the cellar and burned to death. And though the detail never made it into the coroner’s report, many of the victims were discovered in locked rooms, as if they had been trying to shelter themselves.

                Nevertheless, with no evidence of violence and no possibility of disease, toxic gas was blamed. And so last month, with myself, the coroner, and Judge Lambare watching, a crew of workmen in gas masks went down to the cellar and sealed off the sub-basement, laying the case to rest.

                In the aftermath of the event, however, certain baseless and unsavoury rumours had got afoot in Varrock. Foremost among them, of course, was that Ingram had repeated his ancestor’s crime. It was because of these stories — and the shadow they cast on a dead man’s name — that I took it upon myself to edit his last journals for print. If presented in proper context and with proper clarifications, I believed these would clarify any misconceptions about the matter. My decision was supported by two close friends of the deceased — Lord Dimintheis Fitzharmon and the Hon. Haig Halen —who share my faith that this will help dispel the dark cloud of mystery surrounding the tragedy.

                The remainder of this volume consists mostly of a fair copy of the journal. Save for two or three incomprehensibly delirious pages nothing has been omitted, and but for a few critical corrections, no details have been altered. I have supplied commentary when necessary, but the main body of text is assuredly all poor dead Ingram’s.

                Having done my best to do the dead justice, I trust that my work will also satisfy the curiosity of the enquiring public. I hope that the reader will content himself with the explanations provided here, and stay from pursuing any mislead paths of action, for those would merely result in incriminating the innocent, and further grief to those who deserve rest.

               

                Aileen Westbrook

                Gulvas Mansion, Silvarea, Misthalin,

                - of -, year - of the Sixth Age

               

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -This fic takes place in Aileen Westbrook's timeline, in which the 5th Age quests are scattered across several years, with some taking place in the 6th Age. For instance, River of Blood happened in 168, while Rag 'n' Bone Man and Fur 'n' Seek have yet to take place. For exact details, consult full timeline here: http://laetitialaetitii.tumblr.com/worldguardian
> 
> -A few words about the names:  
> The surnames of the Varrockian characters all come from the Varrock Census fond in the palace library, chosen on the basis of who could be related to whom (going by social class and profession.)
> 
> As for the historical names, they all come from the works of a certain author, who is referenced abundantly both in this story and in the source material quest.
> 
> Finally, there is the matter of Ingram, who after some deliberation, became "Golves", a later corruption of Gulvas.


	2. On The History of Gulvas Mansion

 

                As an explanatory note, I have chosen to feature a brief history of the estate, assembled from Ingram’s research notes, which are both clearer and more concise than anything I could produce on my own. Most of them were written during the last weeks of his life, at the mansion where he spent his days supervising the restoration and his nights poring over city annals and parish records. According to a letter he wrote to Lord Fitzharmon — a friend of his and mine —Ingram was working on a genealogical treatise, which he hoped to publish in conjunction with a chronicle of the house.

                The account begins with the story of Ormod Gulvas, Ingram’s ancestor, who over a hundred years ago built the manor. It is based on several sources —a judge’s report, local records, and a selection of letters all dated in the early years of the Fifth Age. I present it here as it was written.

                _“Little is known about the early life of Ormod Gulvas. Though no record of his birth was ever made, and though he appears to have been ignorant of his own exact age, he was most likely born during the last fifty years of the Fourth Age, somewhere in northern Misthalin._

_In a letter he described his own father as an ‘illiterate tribesman’ and in all likelihood he grew up in relative poverty and great uncertainty. Nevertheless, amid the upheavals of the beginning of the Age of Humans, he managed to build an incredible fortune as a trader in runestones, a priceless and bloodily sought-after commodity in that time. At the height of his power, as a testament of his wealth and influence, he then built in the hills of Silvarea a manor of incredible size and opulence. It was the grandest private home of its day, and especially notable as its master was a commoner by birth._

_However, in many other respects Ormod proved unlucky. Not ten years after the mansion was completed his wife succumbed to the pox, and was shortly followed by the couple’s only son. Soon afterwards, Ormod’s own health began to deteriorate rapidly. Records about him mention repeatedly his moods and temper, but also a peculiar obsession with his home’s basement and ‘what lay below it.’ It seems that after the loss of his family he began a descent into a morbid mental state, which only a few months later concluded in a final fit of violent madness._

_One night in the Septober of year 21, having spent several weeks in the seclusion of his home, Ormod Gulvas locked and sealed every door and window in the mansion. Having thus rendered the house inescapable (Judge Grafham’s report states), he proceeded to butcher his entire domestic staff in incredibly gruesome ways. Having dispatched with the last, he dragged himself to the house’s crypt, where he collapsed atop an empty sarcophagus next to the one that held the remains of his wife. He was dead in minutes, finished by the poison he had taken before commencing his killing spree._

_There were no survivors. A testament was found next to Ormod’s body, but according to Judge Grafham, ‘it revealed no motive, but only the workings of a diseased mind.’”_

                In the same now-lost testament Ormod left the house to his sister Briaca DeMarne, née Gulvas, who lived in it until her death in year 38 with no records of any disturbances or trouble.

                After Briaca, the house was passed to her son Abrecan. Under his ownership it suffered minor damage from a troop of barbarians, who having razed the nearby Earth Altar _“made their way to the temple Paterdomus in Silvarea…but deciding against crossing the river, turned back.”_   The nature of the damage is not specified, but apparently the incident frightened Abrecan, who moved out of his lonely abode and sold it shortly afterwards.

                Between the years 51-169 there is little information. Initially, the mansion was passed from owner to owner like an unwanted child, while once or twice relatives of the Gulvases tried to claim it back. Then, from around year 70 onwards, general interest in it seemed to wane. The reasons for this were obvious — the isolated location, combined with its ever worsening condition and enormous maintenance expenses, made it undesirable to almost any prospective buyer. They would have made so any house in the world, even one that was not famed for a series of murders and a barbarian raid.

                In 112 (according to local parish records) Bertram DeMarne, then the owner of Gulvas Mansion, hung himself in the master bedroom. The cause of his suicide was unknown, but was thought to have been brought on by his debts.

                In 150 Lord Gontamue, a local noble not related to the Gulvases, acquired the place and settled there with his family. Four years later — at the beginning of the Siege of Varrock — they fled to the city, leaving the house uninhabited for the next fifteen years.

                Eight years later a group of antiquarians from the museum of Varrock, lured by certain odd artefacts found near the Salve, began excavations in the fields south of Silvarea. Over the next decade the dig — which revealed the remains of several ancient civilisations — spread to cover most of the west bank. The hills, however, were deemed by the experts to be _“of no archaeological interests, since any remains in such an exposed place would have long since been destroyed by the elements.”  (Damn you, Dr. Balando. —A.W.)_

                In 169, Ingram — a Lumbridgian gentleman of independent means and a descendant of Briaca Gulvas — bought the mansion with the intention to restore it for use. By the following summer most of the basic repairs were finished, and the new master, together with a small domestic staff, moved in.

                During his short residence there, he kept a journal in which he documented his genealogical findings, along with various pieces of information about the estate. In the same book he also recorded what he referred to as _incidents_ and _occurrences,_ the nature of which will become clear as the story progresses.

                As for him, a few words may be in order. I only met Ingram Golves briefly, a few hours before his death, and never had the opportunity to speak to him face to face. Nevertheless, I’ve only heard good reports of his person, and all those who knew him seem to remember him for his erudition, refinement, and good character. In the wake of his death I’ve discussed him with several reliable people, and none mentioned any tendency towards impulsiveness or instability, leave alone cruelty or violence. The worst anyone could come up with about him was that he was somewhat unsocial, prone to becoming over-immersed in his interests, and that he had never married. None of these qualities is exactly damning, and none point towards a penchant for mass murder. Unlike his ancestor’s, his is not a tale of insanity, but merely of unfortunate — horribly, tragically, senselessly unfortunate — coincidences.

 


	3. Ingram's Diary: 1st of Ire of Phyrrys, 169

_According to Lord Gontamue, Ingram first professed his interest in the mansion in 168, when following the Morytanian Revolution, Misthalin’s eastern border was finally pronounced safe. His Lordship, who had hardly visited the property since his flight in 154, was naturally pleased about finding a prospective buyer, and over the next year, the two men engaged in a lengthy and verbose correspondence over the matter._

_While their letters would no doubt be of interest to those with a penchant for Misthalinian property law, the story — for the purpose of this book — begins late in the autumn of 169, when the two gentlemen finally came to an agreement._

***

               

                Jolly Boar Inn, 1st of Ire of Phyrrys, 169

               

                Today — after months of legal wrangling and haggling, of negotiations and paperwork— my ancestral seat has finally passed to my possession, and I, Ingram Golves, am now the lawful owner of Gulvas Mansion.

                Lord Gontamue and I signed the final documents at the Bank of Varrock this afternoon; I with joy, he with relief, and both departed contented. The poor man, who had been stuck with the unwanted property for over a decade, seemed immensely lightened afterwards, and left almost immediately. Too soon for me, as a matter of fact, since I would have liked to ask him certain questions about the house. Alas, I’ll have to write to him in Kandarin.

                Should the weather permit it, I shall tomorrow visit my estate and begin preparations for the restoration. I have already secured a foreman for the project — a very experienced Asgarnian from Burthorpe — and unless we’re struck by an unusually early winter or some other, unexpected calamity, we ought to be able to start the work shortly.


	4. 2nd of Ire of Phyrrys, 169

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 4, in which Ingram visits the mansion for the first time, and we also meet Lumthorne.

                2nd of Ire of Phyrrys, 169

                At eleven o’clock this morning, having notified the innkeeper of my intent and destination, I left for Silvarea. During our negotiations, Lord Gontamue had informed me about the ox-cart service that takes supplies to Paterdomus twice a month, and yesterday he half-heartedly suggested that I wait until its next run before visiting my new property. Finding myself intolerant of further delays, I disregarded his advice, and opted instead to go immediately, on foot.

                While I had tried to entice a few friends to join in on the reconnaissance trip, none had taken up my offer. Consequently, the only one accompanying me was my valet Lumthorne, who like his master, never foregoes an opportunity to be out of doors.

                It was a chilly, dry autumn’s day, with a moody, overcast sky, and a sharp northerly tearing at the flame-coloured leaves. The road had dried up after recent rains, but few other wayfarers seemed to be about.

                Nonetheless, even with favourable conditions, it is a good three hours’ ramble from the inn to the mansion. Since the shortness of day would inevitably abbreviate our stay, we ought to have departed earlier, but I did not let the knowledge weigh me down. We walked at a brisk pace, and with every step I felt an uncharacteristic anticipation grow within me.

                Around noon we turned riverwards at the statue of Saradomin the Guardian. An hour or so later, having passed the ruins of the Earth Altar, we let ourselves through a half-rotten wicket gate to enter Silvarea. Shortly afterwards, I caught through the trees a brief glimpse of the Senntisten excavation, where even then tiny figures puttered amid the rows of gigantic, ancient orthostates. Then the view was abruptly eclipsed by a crumbling precipice, and we entered the narrow, shaded pass.

                Here the unmaintained road was losing its battle to the wild weeds and half-dead trees, but though its condition deteriorated with every mile, I did not let this affect my spirits or step. So, while we treaded carefully around the muddy puddles with their silvery reflections of the sky, soaking our trouser legs against the dewy briar in the process, we did not slacken our pace. And thus, by the time my pocket-watch showed the time was approaching two in the afternoon, we finally found ourselves in front of the monumental entrance of Gulvas Mansion. 

                After the long walk, I admit I felt almost let down. The windows were dark and empty, the walls streaked white with swallow-droppings. Dead leaves covered the massive bifurcated front stairs, and as we tentatively ascended them, Lumthorne remarked on the dead animals in the empty niches that had once housed statues. A rusty wrought-iron fence enclosed the front of the house and a tiny yard on the side, but little grew there. Topsoil was all but gone from the hill, but somehow a pair of ancient, grotesquely misshapen yews, one on each side of the entrance, clung to dear life on its abrupt precipice.

                Back at the bank Lord Gontamue had hastily told me to “not even bother with the front door locks.” The chain holding it shut was as old as his own exile from the house, he had said, and so were the padlocks on it. So, while Lumthorne attacked the former with pliers, I wrapped my coat on tighter against the icy wind, and turned around to take in our surroundings.

                There was little to see, and over it all hung the same sense of wild desolation. It was not a lovely place by any standard, and whatever charms it might have had on a summer’s day, it did not possess with chill, foggy, irate Phyrrys upon us. On the other side of the unkempt pass, I could see the quarry, long abandoned— a torn-up cliff-face, grey-green, disfigured by pits and terraces dug by miners dead for decades. At the western end of the hill, one could just about spy the beacon tower, second in the line that begins at Paterdomus. As I studied the view, I also noticed something else: a column of smoke, rising above some unseen crevice among the cliffs. I was just about to point this out to Lumthorne, when a satisfying clink told me the chain had broken, and I forgot everything else.

                After the chain were gone and the lock undone, it still took us both shoulder-barging in unison until the old, swollen, wood would budge. When the door finally opened with a deafening creak, we did not tarry, but stepped inside without a word to one another.

                It was cold there. Cold, much more so than outside, with a dank, musty odour lingering in the motionless air. The panes on the north-facing windows were too dirty to let much light through, and all one could see by them were the shadows of the latticework on the dusty floor. It had looked like a tomb, it smelled like a tomb, and but for the echoes of our footfalls, it was as quiet as a tomb. Nothing stirred, until suddenly and without a warning, a flame flashed and we were bathed in light.

                For a second I was blinded. When my eyes gradually adjusted to the brightness, I was stunned to see candles burning in a blackened iron chandelier overhead. Then, as my racing heart decelerated again, the explanation dawned on me — it was a simple enchantment, probably paid for by one of my predecessors. Without realizing it, we had come out of the cramped little vestibule, and in all likelihood our stepping over the hall’s threshold had triggered the spell.

                The entrance hall — now that I could see it — turned out to be an immense, cavernous room with bare rafters, so vast that even with the chandelier alight, much of it was left in shadow. In the middle rose a broad staircase, each side of which stood guard a dust-sheeted statue of Raurgic proportions, oversized and out of place, their heads level with the upper gallery. The sheets were a few feet too short for their purpose, and under their hems I could glimpse white marble boots, each as long as my arm. The effect was unsettling, not only because they were strange decorations for a home of that era (for I knew my ancestor was a great collector of relics and curios), but because one had to wonder how they had ever been brought inside.           

                Yet, despite the oddities and the flaws, I already felt drawn to the place. For all the dust and cobwebs and smell of decay, the locked doors along the panelled walls called to me, and I couldn’t wait to see what wonders hid behind them. Before we proceeded, however, Lumthorne had the good sense to do what I had shamefully neglected, as he jammed a loose brick between the front door and its frame. He had no intention of being locked inside, he told me dryly, and little taste for climbing out of windows. He had a point, as always.

                Our retreat thus secured, we proceeded to try the first door on the left. As it turned out, this opened into a dining room, which for one accustomed to the grandeur of our own age looked small and austere. Bare floorboards, dark wainscoting, a few pieces of furniture — all covered in dust, though not as thickly as one would have anticipated. A table long enough to seat twenty people took up most of the space, and we had to press against the wall to get past it.

                From the far end of the room we found our way to a windowless corridor, where by the glow of a dwarven-made safety lantern we checked the doors one by one. An empty chamber of sorts, a way back to the hall, a second corridor — likewise ending in a locked door, which made Lumthorne speculate on the distance between the kitchen and the dining room. It did seem odd, and not for the first time I wondered why I had not been given floor plans of any kind.

                Unwilling to probe further, we returned to the main hall to try the only door on the western side. This yielded another passage, but to my delight, also a fully equipped study with an adjacent library. The recessed cases brimmed with leather-bound tomes, and the few I inspected proved to be in immaculate condition. The previous owners had left in quite a hurry, and evidently had never bothered to clear out their possessions. Moreover, I recalled Lord Gontamue saying that Ormod’s records and relics were still about, though he had not specified where. No-one had ever felt the need to claim them upon moving out.

                Next we decided to have a look upstairs. I had been assured the floor structures were all in excellent state, as were the stairs. Nonetheless, I felt somewhat apprehensive climbing the creaking wooden steps, and I could tell that Lumthorne shared my concerns.

                The gallery, then? More doors and more corridors, more waist-high wainscoting, more cracking plaster. With the lone and queer exception of the dining room, nothing was directly accessible from the great hall. To get to the smallest closet, it seemed, one had to go down interminable hallways, each sealed at both ends with a locked door. I’ve never seen such security.

                As we proceeded from one beautifully fashioned lancet-arch door to another, I realized I was gradually becoming disoriented. Each long hallway looked exactly alike, and from time to time I found I had to look out of a window to verify which side of the building we were on.  In addition, while most of the doors were locked, some were bolted as well, which forced us to detour through other rooms to open them. It was unsettling, and I quietly decided to leave exploring the house fully to another occasion.

                Before we left, though, there was though a peculiar incident I might as well report. We were on the first floor in the east wing, when suddenly at the other end of the hall I heard Lumthorne give a start.

                _“Saradomin’s light,”_ he gasped, and him not a man prone to oaths. “Mr Golves, come and have a look at this damned thing here.” Quickly, I made my way to the open door, and I admit I was alarmed myself.

                It was a closet of sorts, too small for a scullery-maid’s room, with no windows or lights. In the middle of it, freshly divested of its dust-sheet, stood a hooded figure fashioned from stone. It was an impressive work of sculpture, a robed human or humanoid almost nine feet tall, with a crozier of some kind held in its clasped hands. When I shone my lantern closer, I perceived with a shudder that the hood contained no face whatsoever.

                What’s more, the longer I looked at the damned thing, the more clearly I realized that something else was amiss — I realized it was no Early-Fifth-Age work. Not a Misthalinian one, certainly. The style was wrong, as was the level of the workmanship, which rivalled Icyenic relics from old Hallowland. But whether it was an import or an antique I could not tell, no more than I could tell why it had been stuck in a broom closet.

                When Lumthorne shortly suggested that we call it a day, I did not oppose him. However, there was one more thing I wanted to see before we headed back. It was almost a boyish craving — I wished to ascend the mansion’s tower to have a look at the view of Silvarea. But when we got to the door, I found it locked, and no key on my keyring could open it. Dejected, but unwilling to vandalize my ancestral home, I decided to leave the tower for another day. We set for home, securing the door behind us with a new padlock and chain of our own.

                From the walk back, I recall two things: firstly, I definitely saw smoke above the old limestone quarry. Second, there was something Lumthorne said, as we passed through the gate near Earth Altar.

                “I don’t know if you noticed it, Mr Golves,” he began, as he does every time he knows I damned well didn’t notice, “but there was something badly off on the first floor near that statue closet.” I asked him what he meant. “What I mean,” he responded, “is that in that wing there was on both floors at least a bedroom’s worth of unaccounted space. We were going round closed-off spots all the time.”

                I realized he was right. I had noticed something being not quite right, but had failed to grasp what exactly it was. I told him so, and quietly resolved to come back with better time, and better tools, and more people.


	5. 9th of Ire of Phyrrys, 169

                9th of Ire of Phyrrys, 169

               

                Things have worked out better since my last entry. Two days after our excursion, I received an unexpected visit from a gentleman from the Bank of Varrock. There had been a mistake, he explained to me with many apologies, and for some reason I had not received all the keys to the house at the signing.

                He handed me the rest now, together with a thick envelope bearing the seal of Lord Gontamue. Inside this I found a full floor plan of the mansion, with the rooms labelled and every door marked, together with his lordship’s list of whatever faults and failings he thought the structure had of old.  These proved a godsend, and thus instead of leaving straight on another visit, I have spent the past few days studying the papers.

                I can say one thing right away: little about the layout of Gulvas Mansion makes sense.

                For instance, an excessive amount of space is dedicated to the corridors, as if the architect — or his employer — harboured some inexplicable fear of interconnected rooms. And what for are the  many tiny, closet-like chambers all over the house, compartments of a dozen square feet with no apparent function? One I see marked as “side-study”, while many of the others are simply unnamed. Why so many in different places?

                Furthermore, many of the labels are simply odd. What on earth could be the “viewing room”, or the “gallery room”, and why by Noumenon are both windowless? So much space wasted on the hallways, and half of them run along outer walls too, leaving several central rooms in the dark.

                Another mystery concerns that queer statue closet. At the time (though I’ll grant that I was none too keen on looking more carefully), I never realized it had another door. Behind it, according to the plans, is a similar storeroom. And behind that, two more of the same. Four tiny cupboards, each accessible from the previous, arranged into a square? What for? What on Gielinor for?

                While I was studying the drawings, Lumthorne’s words came back to me. Firstly, while the plans account for almost all of the space, there remains next to the tower an entire corner of the east wing ground floor that appears to be completely inaccessible.  A secret room?

                Secondly, his more prosaic question was answered thus: the kitchen lies in the basement, and in order to reach the dining room, the servants have to climb up two flights of stairs, and then detour around most of the wing through three corridors to get to their destination.

                I wonder if a family living in that house has ever eaten a warm meal.


	6. 19th of Ire of Phyrrys, 169

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 6, in which the mansion is revisited.

              19th of Ire of Phyrrys, 169

               

                On Caistleday the twelfth, Lumthorne and I returned to the mansion. Unlike previously, we were not alone, as with us came Mr Stonemason the foreman, accompanied by two of his hands. This time we did not turn down a ride from the ox-cart driver either, but gladly stowed our equipment among its sacks and crates before climbing aboard the overloaded wagon ourselves. I wanted to finish surveying the building as soon as possible, and thus we had come prepared to camp at the house.

                Perhaps it was the unseasonable warmth, perhaps it was the company, but Silvarea seemed more welcoming now, and the journey seemed to pass in no time. As the cart trundled on, we’d hop off now to walk a mile, then clamber back on for a rest, while around us the landscape grew lush and wild.

                The road was dry and the weather remained clear, and so the cart arrived in front of the bifurcated stairs not thirty minutes after noon. Having deposited our luggage in the hall, Lumthorne and I — guided by the plans and armed with a full set of keys — led the others on a tour.

                At a glance, Stonemason said, the building seemed to be in decent condition. The walls wanted remodelling and the roof was a mess, but the timber structures looked dry and solid, and he could neither see nor smell any mould. All in all (he told me as he tried the taps in the guest bathroom), the plumbing and the chimneys would probably need a lot of work, but unless some awful surprise lurked in the basement, I’d probably get out of it with relatively little trouble.

                Unlike on our first, disordered expedition, this time I had the mind to go through the rooms methodically. There were many we had failed to notice, among them some that turned out to be testaments of my ancestor’s idiosyncrasies.

                There was the enigmatically labelled and incomprehensible “viewing room”, a large square chamber divided in half by a plain sheet of glass suspended in an ornate brass frame, the purpose of which none of us could surmise. There was a music room with a mute piano affixed to the floor. Adjacent to this we located one of the strange, wall-locked areas Lumthorne had pointed out, and though we knocked and tapped at the partitions on all three sides, no way to enter it could be found.

                Then there was the mystery of the statue closet. As the plans had showed, it did have a second door, but this one — and here the whole thing began to feel absurd — turned out to have neither a keyhole nor a handle. One of the workmen asked if I wanted him to take a sledgehammer to it, but I declined the offer. The time for drastic measures wasn’t yet.

                Knowing that darkness would fall early, we worked through the day without a break to stop shortly before sundown. By then we had surveyed both floors, documenting any damage and listing required materials, which left only the basement for the next day. Too tired to do much else, we ate simple meal of canned goods, after which we withdrew to the library where Lumthorne had rolled out five sleeping mats on the floor. Unsure of the condition of the chimneys, we did not dare risk using the fireplace, but a small brazier lent us at least a little warmth.

                Before retiring, though, there was the old desire I still craved to satisfy. So, doing my best to not disturb the others, I took one of the safety lanterns and slipped out to head for the tower. This time the door yielded to my key easily, and I finally ascended the dusty, groaning cast-iron spiral stairs to the top. Imagine then my surprise and disappointment, when instead of a sunset vista all I beheld was dirty plaster and cobwebs! I remembered definitely having seen windows from the outside, and a closer inspection revealed several patches of hastily painted brickwork — for some unfathomable reason, the windows had been immured. With the view obstructed, there was little of interest in the top chamber. A foldaway cot, a child-sized chair, a tiny trunk. A miniature prison. I left shortly, feeling vaguely and inexplicably perturbed.

                I woke up briefly that night. It was pitch-dark, and all I could hear was the even breathing of four deep sleepers. Before I closed my eyes once more, I glanced out of the window — my mat lay next to the wall — to see the distant spark of a fire burning at the limestone quarry.


	7. 20th of Ire of Phyrrys, 169

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 7, in which the tale of the second visit to the mansion continues, this time with an excursion to the basement.

                20th of Ire of Phyrrys, 169

               

                 I was disturbed abruptly while writing yesterday, and must now finish my report of the second excursion.

                 The next morning, this being the 13th, we resumed our survey. Having broken fast on the front stairs (it was another glorious day), we descended underground.

                Though Lord Gontamue’s notes had proved exasperatingly insufficient and vague, they did mention a few interesting details about the cellars. Apparently the house had been built atop a natural cave, some of which Ormod had turned into a basement. No-one knew the actual extent of the hollows, but when at the end of his life he developed a fixation on “what lay beneath his house”, my ancestor had tunnelled deeper into the hill, and only his death had stopped the project.

                In the same paragraph of the notes there was another infuriatingly obscure mention of “older structures incorporated into the foundations” and a flat suggestion that I “leave the sub-basement be unless problems arise”, though no reason was given.

                Right at the foot of the basement stairs I could already notice that something was off. It was not anything I could see —our lanterns showed nothing but latched doors and whitewashed walls — but something I could smell. It was the nauseating stink of rotting carcasses, and it seemed to concentrate about the staircase itself. When I pointed this to Stonemason, he blamed vermin.

                “Rats in the walls,” he said. “An old house like this, even with nobody living in it, is bound to have some. They tunnel inside the masonry and die there and stink up the place.” He didn’t seem to think much of it, but I could not help but notice that given the sheer _volume_ of the odour, we had to be dealing with quiet an infestation. It was also odd that even in the old pantries where food had been stored, I never noticed a similar stench.

                I had been looking forward to exploring the basement, and it did not disappoint me. We discovered a cathedral-like kitchen, an armoury full of old iron weapons — still in peculiarly good repair — and a wine cellar stocked with oak barrels and dusty bottles. Once the survey was complete, I decided, I would offer everyone a round of its contents.

                In a room at the end of the kitchen we stumbled upon a monstrous heating furnace, certainly an addition by one of my recent predecessors. The condition of the apparatus interested Stonemason greatly, and while he stayed behind to give it a thorough inspection, the rest of us continued the tour. On the way out, however, something caught my eye. It was the arch around the doorway — a huge and elaborate affair, with an ornately fashioned, triangular keystone. It was — that was much clear at a glance — one of Gontamue’s “older structures”, though _how_ old, that was anyone’s guess. It wasn’t particularly remarkable as far as remains go, but if for my conscience only, I added in my notebook the item _“furnace-room arch”,_ followed by triplet question marks.

Last of all there was the matter of the trapdoor by the stairs. This was what we called it, though the term was somewhat misleading. What we referred to was not even a proper hatch, but a square hole some six feet across with boards nailed unceremoniously across it.

                It was the entrance to the sub-basement. Though there was little rational reason for it — since “Ormod’s tunnels” evidently contained nothing of note — I burned with a curiosity about them, tinged with an unusual thirst for adventure. Therefore I at last gave one of them workmen the permission to put his crowbar to use, and a minute later the boards were gone. When the last of the ends had been pulled off, we found ourselves gazing into a midnight tunnel older than the house.

                That was my first observation. Just like the strange statue in the closet— just like the odd-looking arch in the furnace room, damn it — the narrow passage cut into the bedrock could not conceivably be the work of the first century. My ancestor had not quarried his tunnels. He had had them emptied out. I don’t know why, but the idea disturbed me profoundly.

                While the others stood around in fixed fascination, I crouched at the edge of the hole to get a better view of the pit. In the light of my lantern I could see a set of steps — cut into the bedrock and hewn smooth and gleaming down the middle — disappear into the dark. It was this detail that astounded me the most — the worn state of the stairs, as if thousands of feet had trampled up and down them —and at once I resolved to uncover what lay further down.

                There was token resistance from Lumthorne, but he soon saw that I had made up my mind.  At the top of the stairs, I turned back to see three worried faces framed in a square of light. Then I turned my back to them, and lantern in hand, in began the long descent into primordial darkness.

                                I tried to count the steps, but lost track quickly. The stairs went straight down for some time, until ending in an unfurnished landing whence a second, identical set of steps led deeper. How far below did the tunnel reach? Was I already below sea level; below the ruins of Senntisten? I couldn’t tell, and I cannot make an estimation now. The air was growing colder, but despite the proximity of the river, the walls remained dry. Only my breathing broke the otherwise perfect silence.

                Being entirely focused on keeping my footing on the worn, uneven steps, I couldn’t keep count of the tunnels and landings.  It was after the sixth or seventh flight of stairs (I wished I had brought a compass as well, for I had turned around too many times to know which way I was headed) that I found myself not on a landing, but in a horizontal passageway, which opened into chamber with a high, vaulted ceiling.

                In the flickering light of the dwarven lantern I could see a door — no, a gate; an ancient, double-elliptical affair of inhuman proportions, with queer, angular figures carved in the dark wood. In front of the door, two on both sides, stood a row of intricately shaped stone obelisks of an outlandish design, as if guarding the entrance.

                I can’t quite describe the impression or the effect of the sight, but at once I counted in my head through the peoples who had lived in Silvarea. Misthalinians had established Paterdomus a few centuries ago, but had always shunned the land by the river. Before them, there had been the mighty city of Saranthium, obliterated in a terrible disaster, and before that, Saradomin knew how long ago, the Zarosian pagans had erected the standing-stones of Senntisten. What of the time before them? What about the war? What about the countless times the unhallowed vyres had tried to invade the west?

                At this point I had to force myself to stop thinking, lest an imagined horror make me panic. Instead, I made my way across the floor to the doorway, and here I observed something else. While the steps and the landings had been neatly swept, in the chamber the floor was covered thickly in rubble, as if whoever had come here had ordered the work to halt unfinished.

                _Left it unfinished? Or having seen the impenetrable barrier, did he give up? And what did it all have to do with his deadly madness?_ I am a moderate man by nature, and not prone to frenzies or fantasies, but deep in the dark of that primeval crypt, I had to use all my self-control to keep from bolting for the stairs. Not only because of my irrepressible thoughts, but because of the fact, the damned fact, that from the crack in that Pre-Edictian door issued a steady, perceptible stream of cool air.

                _Whence? Where did the tunnel resurface? On which side of the river?_ It was claustrophobia, of course, and in my head the rational fear of a collapse had transformed into an irrational one of the unexplained. _But when upon glancing down I noticed in the dirt an object that was not stone, I turned around and fled in wild terror._

                When I climbed out through the trapdoor, I was greeted with relief. I had not been below for longer than twenty minutes, I learned, but the others had already grown anxious on my behalf. By then Stonemason had finished his inspection of the furnace (which he pronounced “wanting fixing”), and we all headed back to the surface.

                The survey was complete, and so I sat down with the foreman to discuss the restoration and everything needed for it. As night fell, we had our last tinned meal, which we toasted with a lovely, twenty-year-old Karamjan red from the wine cellar. The following morning we packed our gear, and left back to Varrock on the returning ox-cart.

                As for the sub-basement, I added in the list of repairs that it should be cleaned and outfitted with serviceable stairs and a proper door. The final vault can be left alone. _I never mentioned to anyone the fanged jawbone._

                _(I experienced some trouble with copying the entry above, since after writing it, Ingram untidily erased several lines in the final passages. By holding the pages against a window, I was able to decipher the expunged sentences, which are replicated in the fair copy in italics. —A.W.)_


	8. 40th of Ire of Phyrrys, 169 - A Letter to Dimintheis Fitzharmon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 8, in which the renovation begins, and Ingram writes a letter to an old friend.

                Varrock, 40th of Ire of Phyrrys, 169 

                Dear Dimintheis,

                I am happy to announce that the restoration of Gulvas Mansion will commence tomorrow. By systematically going through the archives at the Museum and the records recovered from the house’s library, I have amassed enough information to guide the work. I have ordered timber from the nearby woods and iron from the foundries at Edgeville, which is as close to original materials as is nowadays possible. Sadly I was not able to obtain a permit to extract limestone from the old mine, but the stuff quarried at Ice Mountain ought to be nigh identical.

                There was a second problem I had not foreseen, though: the foreman had a ridiculously hard time securing enough hands for the project. Not because there is a shortage of labour in Misthalin, by any standard, but because of the location — many of the Varrock commoners have a singular fear and hatred of Gulvas Mansion, if not Silvarea in general. I hear the same problem has occasionally risen at the dig site. You of course were probably aware of this, but to me it came as a shock.

                Well, at the end we managed to hire quite a lot of out-of-towners who were only too happy to be employed, local superstitions be damned. Stonemason himself is of course a blessedly robust son of Burthorpe, and doesn’t give two hoots about Misthalinian legends.

                Lastly, there was an issue of which I have not spoken of, and which I ask you do not mention to others. While exploring the house’s basement, I came across a few elements that may date back to the time before Ormod. While they aroused in me a touch of scientific curiosity, I decided not to report my findings to the Museum, since that would inevitably result in a delay.

                All I want is to return my ancestral home to its former beauty, and I cannot do that with a legion of scholars running about like an escaped demon horde. When the work is finished, I shall let Haig Halen know, and then he can unleash the Royal Archaeological Society on me at his leisure. 

                Please write soon, my friend, and tell me in turn about reclaiming your old seat.

                Yours faithfully,

                Ingram

***

                _Here end the relevant entries for 169. The restoration of Gulvas Mansion would continue until early Wintumber, when the first snow forced the workers to stop for the winter. During this time Ingram — who had sold his home in Lumbridge and moved into a rented property in Varrock — was patently busy with both social and scholarly pursuits, and made in his writings few remarks concerning the house._

_After repeated delays caused by unseasonable spring tempests, the work recommenced in Moevyng, year one of the Sixth Age. There were no further setbacks for a while, until the breakout of the Battle of Lumbridge compelled several men to quit. They all hailed from southern Misthalin, and naturally wished to return home to take care of their families in times of strife. A note from Mr Stonemason mentions great difficulty in finding replacements._

_Shortly afterwards another missive describes a perplexing occurrence at the site. A workman engaged in the task of painting the western end of the house was climbing up a ladder, when as he steadied himself against a windowsill, the glass in the latticework suddenly exploded outwards. No explanation was found for the event. According to the note, the man suffered “a moderate injury to his left eye”._


	9. 10th of Raktuber, year one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 9, in which winter has turned to spring, and the Fifth age to the Sixth. As the restoration of the mansion draws to a close, Ingram moves into his new home.  
> Meanwhile, though, something else has happened in Silvarea.

                _The next significant item in the journal doesn’t occur until late in the spring of the following year, when Ingram and his staff moved into the mansion. This happened two days after a certain atrocious but unrelated incident took place in an out of Silvarea Pass, and poor Ingram landed right in its aftermath._

_***_

               

                Gulvas Mansion, 10th of Raktuber, year one

               

                This is hardly how I imagined my first day in my ancestral home would pass.

                Having left the inn at dawn, our ox-carts rolled to a halt by the entrance before noon. It was quite convenient that we had no need to continue further, as some ten yards ahead the dirt road — already muddy from a previous storm — was cut off by a yawning fissure almost three feet wide. Beside it stood a group of city guards in full armour, plainly keeping watch.

                As I disembarked from the cart, the one who appeared to be in charge — a pockmarked and moustachioed fellow with a sergeant’s stripes and a thick South Varrock accent —greeted me. Once he had ascertained that I was indeed the master of the house, he pulled me aside for a few private words. There had been, he told me, a strange and unpleasant event.

                Two days earlier, a group of monks from the monastery at Edgeville had been on their way to Paterdomus, when n the middle of the pass, they had been ambushed by unknown assailants. The sole survivor, who now was recuperating in Varrock, had described “darkness descending out of nowhere” and “shadows like ink rising from the ground” after which he had heard terrible screaming. When the world around him had finally returned to normal, his brothers had all been dead. Their bodies had been found scattered all over the ravine, each of them exhibiting terrible injuries.

                On this scene of carnage had by chance stumbled a lone traveller, who had escorted the surviving monk to the temple. The priest there had immediately alerted the beacon lookout, who in turn had relayed the news to the city. By the time the guards had arrived, however, there had been nothing to find save for the cold cadavers and that unfathomable aperture in the road.

                There were no clues as to the identity of the attackers, the sergeant told me. But until the worst possible option was ruled out (here he glanced almost reflexively eastwards), his company would remain stationed in Silvarea.

                After finishing his story, he suggested that I return to Varrock until the situation was cleared. But though I had found the news profoundly unsettling, I could see no direct threat, and thus saw no reason to retreat. I told him as much, and having accepted my decision with a shrug, the sergeant resumed his vigil by the road. By then the servants had finished unloading the carts, and while the drivers turned them back towards the city, I proceeded to enter my new home.

                Yet I can’t say that I’m not disconcerted. Such an atrocity would have been alarming anywhere, but the site made it especially so. By saying this I am not referring to the mansion, of course, but to the vicinity of the river and the bridge. While peace with Morytania may last for now, none of us have forgotten the horror of 167.   

                To be fair, there are other suspects— bandits, goblin raiders, the Dagon’hai Zamorakians —and in all likelihood the accusing finger will not end up pointing east. But while I’m writing this, and while messages no doubt fly between Varrock and Darkmeyer, I quietly pray for any other conclusion.

                It is almost dark by now. From my window (I am writing this in Ormod’s old study) I can see the guardsmen’s campfire burning bright. Curiously enough, there isn’t one in the mine tonight. Perhaps I should mention this to the sergeant tomorrow?

                In any case, it is going to be a long and cold night. Before I turn in, I’ll tell the housekeeper to have a servant take hot drinks to the sentries.

                As for myself, I’m quite exhausted, and the reflections in the panes are beginning to play tricks on my eyes. So, once I have finished this entry I shall head upstairs, and retire to spend my first night in the canopied four-poster of the master bedroom.


	10. 13th of Raktuber, year one

13th of Raktuber, year one

               

                The soldiers have finally left. No trace of the attackers was ever discovered (Sergeant Scorsby told me), but Morytanian aggression was ruled out. This was based on both “intelligence from a third party” (I doubt he even knew what precisely this entailed) and the injuries on the corpses. Or to be exact, the weapons found in those injuries. The sergeant himself had inspected the cadavers, and he’d been deeply puzzled by the arrows recovered from them.

                “They were of a foreign make, that I know for sure,” he said, as we watched his men roll up their camp. “Much heavier than anything I’ve ever seen, with strange-looking fletching. But the tips were the queerest part. They were made of whitish crystal, or something that looked like crystal, at any rate. Whoever heard of that? Back in town, they had a wizard from the Tower take a look at one, and she said that there was no way a thing like that would’ve come from Morytania.”

                And thus to our relief our neighbours were exonerated. Whom the crystal weapons incriminated neither Scorsby nor I knew, nor did either of us care much. The worst of it was over and we were all safe.

                As for the future, Scorsby told me that a troop of guards shall remain posted at the gate near the Earth Altar. Should anything alarming or suspicious happen, the sentinel at the quarry beacon could summon them for us immediately.

                 Apart from that arrangement, life in Silvarea would go on as before, which is all anyone wanted.

                This afternoon a crew of workmen came over from the dig site. In less than two hour’s time the enigmatic rift in the road had been filled, and it now looks as if the thing never existed.


	11. 16th of Raktuber, year one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 11, in which Ingram delves deeper into the mysteries of the house, and is confused by what he finds.

                16th of Raktuber, year one

                 

                I’ve been living here for almost a week, but until now the emergency has kept me occupied. Ever since my arrival, I have been unable to think of little except what happened in the pass, and even with the soldiers gone and no perils present, I find myself beleaguered by intrusive ideas and fancied threats.

                I am well aware that beside the incident, this has to do with the house…I have yet to get accustomed to its sounds and the way it lives with the elements. And given the heightened state of both my senses and my nerves, it follows naturally that one reacts to it more sensitively than is either healthy or normal.

                The floorboards creak, in a way that often suggests footsteps. The wind howls in the many chimneys, and the sound reverberates through the long, windowless halls. At night, the silence — perfect save for the crickets and the occasional owl — is almost uncanny.

                I had never truly appreciated how many sounds of life were always present in Lumbridge.

                Nevertheless, I remain of strong constitution and sound mind, and thus know the best antidote to such anxieties is work. As a result, I have focused all my energy on directing the restoration.

                The critical labour has been all but completed. The interior walls still want painting, and much of the furniture requires at least a coat of wax, but once that has been finished, my main concern will be deciding what to do about the artefacts in the drawing room.

                I don’t believe I have mentioned that one yet. I am referring to a spacious, windowless west wing room, whose double doors gave us much trouble during our initial visits. It has since proved too dark and draughty for anyone to withdraw in for any period of time — a verdict my predecessors appear to have agreed on, since it evidently has been used chiefly as a warehouse for relics and curios.

                The artefacts — which range from life-sized sculptures to petty trinkets — appear to be leftovers from a century of owners who clearly acquired _objets_ on a whim, and afterwards never bothered to figure out what to do with them. As a result, the treasures have been left unsorted and uncatalogued, and lie about hither and tither like the hoard of an antiquarian dragon.

                So far, I’ve only had a cursory glance at the collection. And while a proper review will have to wait (I actually ought to have Haig Halen have a look at the lot), certain items in it caught my eye immediately.

                Foremost among these are the Gulvas portraits. There is quite an assortment of them, beautifully preserved in their gilded frames. There are several pictures of Ormod’s wife, a few of the boy at different ages, and some of the merchant as a young man — but only one of him in later life, which is disappointing. Nonetheless, once the walls have been repainted, I plan to have these mounted.

                In addition, I discovered some smaller objects which made me wonder why Lord Gontamue never even brought up the chattel sold with the estate. Did he not know, or did he not care about what he was handing over free of charge? The antique jewellery, the bizarre relics, the tray of ten-carat aquamarines inside a case disguised as _The Book of Wisdom?_ All these treasures hidden in one locked-up room, and given the amount of safety measures he gave the place, one could have thought he _hoped_ a band of goblins would break in and burn the house to the ground.

                Last but not least there were the statues. Imagine my surprise when upon pulling down a dust sheet, I found myself face to face with the lost siblings of the sculpture in the first-floor closet. Three hooded and faceless figures holding croziers, looking to all the world like the priestly procession of a forgotten pagan god.

                After some consideration, I ordered the lot to be placed in the empty niches on the entrance staircase. Given the perfect fit, one has to wonder if this was the original intention of the builder. All the same, there they stand now, keeping their sightless watch over the gorge.

                (A propos of statues and Halen, I dearly want to know what he has to say about the pair of marble behemoths in the entrance hall. The workmen have finally finished cleansing them, _and the faces…the craftsmanship is spectacular, but the faces on the things…)_

                It is night-time again. I will retire now.


	12. 20th of Raktuber, year one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 12, in which a startling discovery is made in an abandoned closet.

                20th of Raktuber, year one

               

                I had already brought myself to believe that the mansion had yielded all of its secrets, and yet today I was proven wrong again.

                Back when I first received the plans of the house, I studied them most closely, and jotted down a whole plethora of notes and questions. When I later returned to the site in person, I took great care to explore it in person, and believed that I was familiar with its every nook and cranny.

                There were a few exceptions, naturally. I never had the second door knocked down in that absurd statue closet, but ordered it left be. As for the strange, wall-locked area south of the music room, Stonemason declared that it had been made so for “structural reasons” (which he did not elaborate), and thus neither I nor he bothered opening it up.

                And yet this morning, I was informed that there was another room I had neglected entirely, not just any room, but one that might hold keys to so many family secrets and confound whatever keeps scratching at the wall.

                It’s not the scuttling of rats, I can recognize that. It’s not timber creaking either. Like fingernails scraping against wood.

                And yet this morning, I was informed that there was a room I had neglected entirely — one hardly larger than a closet, but of immense significance for my interests. I refer here to a minuscule chamber on the ground floor, which on the plans is labelled “side-study”. This, I believe, was Ormod’s private workroom — untouched by all his successors — which he used towards the end of his life.

                The workmen never interfered with it either. Stonemason knew nothing about the matter, but when I spoke to one of the hands, he affirmed that he and his mates had not done anything to “the closet with the desk and the drawings on the walls”.

                Hence, it is entirely undisturbed. And why not? No-one ever found use for it. Saradomin knows the house has enough storerooms. It is dusty but dry, and the papers inside —which cover desk, wall, and floor alike— remain in blameless condition.

                The scratching sound comes from the door. Scra-scra-scraah. Pause. Scrah-scrah-scra.

                I had always wondered about the shortage on Ormod’s writings. While several sources from his era mention him as a man of letters, all I had ever found in the study were receipts and contracts, with not one personal piece in the files. And here they had been all the time — here in this tiny, windowless chamber, a chamber that I had taken for a broom closet! All his notes, all his journals, at least some of his correspondence. And had it not been for one of the servants asking me what I wanted to be done about “all those papers in that east wing closet”, I might have never found out about it!

                I shall tell the housekeeper to have the maids lay down some mouse traps.

                Upon discovery I took a handful of items with me, and left the rest as I found them. Only a few seemed to have dates, and I hope that the order — the stratification, one could call it — might provide some key as to their time of writing. The ones I brought with me — a few loose sheets and a thin book bound in embroidered covers — now rest on the corner of my desk. I’ll have a better look at them tomorrow when the light is better.

                _Scraah-scraah._ It is as if someone behind the door was impotently trying to get in — not unlike a dog that paws at a shut gate — and yet when I go to check the corridor, not a soul is to be found there.


	13. 23rd of Raktuber, year one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 13, in which Ingram begins to study Ormod's papers.

                23rd of Raktuber, year one

               

                I have devoted the past three days to studying Ormod’s notes, and have been both enlightened and confused.

                My progress has been slow for several reasons.  Firstly, although the language is Misthalinian Common, its spelling and expressions have changed immensely in less than two centuries, sometimes to the extent of not being legible to the modern reader. And while my interest in history has granted me some experience with letters of the period, I read the material with considerable difficulty.

                Secondly, Ormod’s handwriting (especially in his private scribblings) is impishly tiny and cramped, and I often have to spend minutes deciphering some of the longer words. Finally, I can’t help remarking that in the papers found topmost in the piles — the ones presumably written shortly before his death — the lettering becomes entirely irregular, often shaky, and the disjointed sentences make little sense.

                Yet with care and diligence, I have been able to interpret several dozen pages of text. And mixed and chaotic as many of them are — varying from journal entries and private correspondence to occult charts — I have already gleamed from their contents several interesting matters.

                As I stated in a recent letter to Dimintheis, it is my intention to use the collection in my genealogical and historical work. But in addition to that, there is a more delicate issue I am interested in — namely, Ormod’s madness. In short, what in the Abyss caused him to commit such a mindless act of savagery? How could a man of such great intelligence and reputedly strong character descend to such a state?  I have only read little of him previously, and mostly from sources written long after his death, but here I might have an answer, or at least a partial answer, to his mystery.

                Consequently, I have taken the greatest care to not only number and catalogue the decrypted pages, but to write down any information they yield. Sometimes these are direct, stated facts; sometimes details that arouse further questions. From time to time, I find leads about other possible sources of evidence.

                For instance, there are several mentions of the Wizards’ Tower. It is public knowledge that Ormod sold the wizards runestones, but I have also found an entry which mentions him repeatedly visiting the institute on some acute cause. I must write to the Tower, and request that they have a clerk go through the archives for any mentions of him.

                Another item that caught my eye was the receipt for the coffins. I found it between the embroidered little book, which appears to have been a ledger of some sort. In it is detailed the payment made to a Varrock sculptor for “three sarcophagi carved of limestone, delivered to the house and installed in the crypts”.

                The problem is, _there is not a single crypt in the house, nor even a corner of a limestone sarcophagus._ Good Mr Stonemason and his crew have made their way through this building from the tower to the sub-basement and back again thrice, and have never found a trace of a burial chamber, leave alone several. The signature is Ormod’s, but could it be that the coffins in question were delivered to someone else’s abode?

                There are dozens of such tiny mysteries in the papers, and if I am to solve them, I will be needing more information. I shall write the Palace library and request a copy of the city annals. The parish records of the church of Varrock might contain something as well. Lastly, there are the law courts’ archives, which if nothing else, ought to have some mention of the murders. I shall write the letters of request tomorrow, and post them as soon as possible.

                 (Speaking of Dimintheis, I sent him an informal invitation to come here at the earliest possible convenience; not only because I want to discuss my discoveries with him, but because the isolation, combined with the lingering unease caused by the attack, seems to affect me mentally. I keep listening for strange sounds, and remain preposterously startled by completely natural noises. It’s plain that I’ve spent too many days cooped up in this house. A little company ought to sooth my nerves.)

                (And speaking of sounds, at least there are some good news: the maids have been laying mouse-traps all over the house for three nights in row, and not one of them has ever been sprung. My housekeeper says that apart from the dead-rat smell by the basement stairs, vermin seem to shun the mansion altogether.)


	14. 24th of Raktuber, year one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 14, in which Ingram explores Silvarea, meets a neighbour, and witnesses the first incident.

                24th of Raktuber, year one

               

_(Morning.)_

Since it will be quite some time before my letters have reached their recipients, leave alone before their replies have reached me, I’ve decided to put Ormod’s archives away for a while to concentrate on other matters.

                There is another reason for this too — as I mentioned in the previous entry, my self-imposed confinement to the house has proved increasingly detrimental to my health. When I lived in Lumbridge, only the hardest rain and the harshest cold ever kept me from my daily walks along the river, and even in Varrock I regularly made use of the promenades and gardens. But here a combination of solitude and lingering fear have led me to become a prisoner in my own home, and I feel the effects more and more acutely every day.

                Therefore, in order to break the cycle, I’ve decided to begin exploring the vicinity. I shall start with the abandoned quarry on the other side of the pass, where so often I have seen a fire burn at night. I’m not afraid that I might run to anyone hostile — whoever camps out there can hardly be a delinquent, for the beacon guard would have certainly alerted authorities about outlaws or vagrants hiding in the mine.

                Perhaps I’ll meet my neighbour.

 

***

                _(Evening of the same day.)_

 When I left the house at half past eleven this morning, the weather was splendid; the sky was clear and the wind gentle, and I felt immediately relieved to be in the open air once more. As I took in the view from the top of the bifurcated staircase, I realized how ridiculous it had of been of me to permit myself to be overrun by imaginary fears.

                Yet the relief was tinged with simultaneous regret, for it struck me at the time just how dissimilar the landscape in Silvarea was from that of my native province. Unlike on the banks of my beloved Lum, I could see no trampled paths here, nor golden fields, nor fenced-off meadows where the soft grass competes with cornflower and clover. I had never quite appreciated the depth of the difference until then, as the sight of the wild, weed-choked gorge brought back to me a memory of gentle green fields and willows at the water’s edge. I thought all this to myself as I descended the stairs, not without some wistfulness, when suddenly I realized I had no idea what my hometown looks like these days. I have not been there since Rintra, but I’ve been told that all of Draynor Wood has been destroyed together with a dozen houses.

                Presently, I was being reminded of another, more prosaic problem. When I moved, most of my domestic staff came with me, with only a few quitting to stay behind. Among them had been my gardener, and I had yet to get around to hiring a replacement for him. Nonetheless it was clear that I’d need one —not for the little enclosed yard on the precipice (though it might benefit from a few potted shrubs), but to maintain the road, which I could see was quickly disappearing from existence.

                 While the renovation was going on, the endless stream of supply carts had meant it stayed open. But as the work had drawn to a close the traffic had diminished, and the briar was sweeping over once more. The summer rains had been kind to the wild bramble and the fantastically misshapen nettles, and in places the track had been swallowed already. As I struggled across the overgrown pass, I couldn’t but marvel how quickly nature had reclaimed her own.

                After some searching, I managed to locate what I had glimpsed from the other side: a set of ancient stairs leading up to the quarry. The mine had been abandoned for almost half a century, but the steps — cut roughly into the cliff-face — survived in entirely serviceable condition. I was already halfway up them, when I noticed something curious: the handrail. The post-holes drilled by the stairs had to be as old as the mine itself, but the guardrail — fashioned of sturdy, peeled branches tied together with cord — could not have seen two winters.

                At the top of the stairs I found myself looking at a scene even more forlorn than the pass. All around me rose the terraced sides of the pit, which even in their dilapidated state preserved the outlines of the last blocks to be extracted — huge sugar lumps of veined, green-grey stone that had found a new life as so many houses in Varrock. Between two overhangs disappeared a narrow crevice, apparently a pathway to a second pit. Countless heavy sleds had been dragged through it long ago, and the ground still bore the grooves their runners had carved.

                Nothing lived there anymore. The miners were long gone, but no weed had ever found enough dirt to take root among the fragmented rock. Even birds seemed to shun the place. In a moment of absurd fancy I looked about, and saw in the quarried terraces the seats of a giants’ amphitheatre, in the inclined planes its Raurgic walkways. When I glanced down, I noticed something in the rubble — shuddering instinctively, though I couldn’t tell why — until a prod of my boot revealed a tarnished iron wedge. There wasn’t much of it left, and the earth around it was enflamed with rust. I left it be.

                The view from the upper terraces, however, turned out to be excellent. Owing to the absence of human inhabitation, the air in Silvarea is phenomenally pure, and on a clear day one can see for miles. Far in the east, I spied the delicate spires of Paterdomus, silhouetted against the pale sky, and next to them, the colossal bell tower. The tower, I recalled, is in fact built to the end of the southern hill, and if Gulvas Mansion only had a side door, one could at least in theory walk along the ridge to say hello to the beacon guard…

                I was so immersed in the landscape that when the voice spoke up behind me, it gave me quite a start.

                “Hello!” It said, which is hardly a menacing opening. All the same, I sprung on my feet at once and spun around to face the stranger.

                The man looked old, though afterwards I realized his uncouth appearance and bent posture might have made him seem beyond his years. He was dressed in rags, and his unkempt white beard reached his chest. He was leaning against a walking stick, which he clearly needed more than I did mine, and on his back was slung a huge, bulging burlap sack.

                “I hope I didn’t give you a start,” he said.

                “You did not,” I lied, eyeing him cautiously.

                “I’ll take that as your forgiveness,” the old man responded. He looked at me, then at the house on the other side of the pass. “Say, you live at the mansion, am I correct?” (Thanks perhaps to the oddness of the situation, I remember his words more clearly than I remember most of my conversations.)

                “I do,” I conceded. “I moved there a few weeks ago.”

                “You did,” he said, his eyes flitting from mine to the house and back. “I saw your carts, and I see your servants all the time. The workmen, too. Not yourself, though.” He had watched the house, then. While this alone proved no ill-will, it did make me uneasy. The man seemed uneasy too, for he kept glancing about as if expecting someone, and twitched under his burden as if preparing to flee.

                (There is something else I noticed at the time, though it only comes back to me as I write this: for all his squatting and his dishevelled appearance, his accent was pleasant and cultured, which immediately made me wonder about his origin.)

                “Do you live at the mine?” I asked abruptly, though I could already guess the answer.

                “Me?” the man said. “Yes, yes I do, in the pit over there,” he went on, motioning towards the crevice with his staff, “In an old miners’ shack. I’ve repaired it a treat—” the sentence stopped abruptly, and he seemed to be listening. Then he looked back at me and smiled apologetically.

                “I’m afraid I must be going,” he said, “though it has been pleasant talking to you, Mr—”

                “Ingram Golves,” I said. “Please, before you go, tell me — do you often have a fire there at night?”

                “Sometimes, Mr Golves, when it’s cold,” the old man said. “Can you see it from the house? Yes? Then perhaps others might see it too, or so I hope…” his voice trailed off.

                “Does the quarry beacon’s guard know you live here?” I asked quickly, for he was clearly making a move to leave.

                “She does! But we do not speak to her!” He was already starting for the crevice, at a speed considerably higher than I would have expected from one hauling such a heavy load.

                “We?” I yelled at his retreating back? “Did you see it? Did you see the attack?”

                “I did not! I did not! It was dark and we stayed away! Goodbye!” The last, shrill words echoed in the mine, and then the odd old man was gone.

                After the hermit had disappeared from sight, I looked after him for a long time. For a second, I considered going after him, but decided against it. If he wanted to speak more, he would do so at his own pace, and I was ready to grant him that.

                Giving up, I made up my mind to continue exploring the mine. There was still plenty I wished to see, not the least the view out west.  But when I turned around again, the sight I encountered was so astonishing that I could barely keep from crying out. In the short time I had spent chatting with the stranger, something queer had happened — an unnatural mist seemed to have risen out of the ground on the other side of the pass, and was now rapidly wrapping my home in haze. It had to issue from minimal fissures around the mansion’s footing, for it concentrated solely about the building, rising in coiling tendrils that lapped at the diamond-paned windows and crept under the eaves.

                All around me the sky was clear, as clear as it had been when I left. Only about the house did the ghostly white mist swirl and rise, growing ever thicker as I watched, swathing it, covering it like a living shroud through which the dying yews reached out like a pair of withered hands…at once I broke into a run,  and dashed down the carved stairs two at a time. While I pushed through the briars in the gorge (which seemed to have grown denser than ever), there came a point at which my home disappeared entirely beyond the mistle-weighed canopies of the oaks. This only seemed to last for a few seconds, but when I re-emerged at the foot of the bifurcated stairs, the strange mist was already all but gone. By the time I reached the door, no trace of it remained, _and as I realize now, not even moisture._ I clanged the bell frantically, until it was opened (completely out of regulation) by Lumthorne.

                “There you are, Mr Golves,” he exclaimed, more or less simultaneously as I shouted:

                “Did you see it?”

                “See the mist, Mr Golves?” he replied. “I dare say we all did, whatever it was, and however it did what it did.”

                “What do you mean?” I asked. “Did what?”

                “I’m not certain,” he said, as he helped my coat off, never missing a beat in his duties. “That is to say, I’m not certain if the haze was to blame, though I can’t see what else it could be. But while it lasted, I could get open neither the door nor a window, nor could anyone else. The latches wouldn’t budge, you see; they were stuck as if welded.”

                “Did anything else happen?” I asked.

                “Not that I could see.”

                And that was it. An hour ago one of the maids announced her resignation. She was a local girl from Varrock, the housekeeper told me, and would not explain her reason for leaving.

                In other words, I am a chambermaid and a gardener short.


	15. 25th of Raktuber, year one

                25th of Raktuber, year one

               

               Though no-one will mention the reason, and though I have presented a rational explanation for what happened, the mood in the house remains apprehensive. Many of the servants are visibly nervous, and I do not hesitate to admit that my own sense of unease has returned.

                Last evening I questioned the staff to find out what they had seen. At first I got nothing beyond what Lumthorne had already told me: a mist had risen out of nowhere until it covered the windows, which in turn had become stuck, and as someone added “cold to the touch.”

                Then one of the maids stepped forward. I recognized her vaguely as a new addition to my staff, a Draynor girl who had only joined my household briefly before I left Lumbridge. It was clear from her manner that she was reluctant to say anything — perhaps because of her station, perhaps because she feared being thought a fool — but after some encouragement from the cook, she told her story.  

She had seen the fog emerge from a wall in the basement, she told me. She had been scrubbing the floor in the furnace room, when suddenly thin wisps of “what looked like steam” had begun to leak from the gaps in the back wall’s ancient masonry —“the cracks between those huge blocks of stone.” In seconds the wisps had become streams, which had risen along the furnace and the chimney to disappear through the ceiling — and at that point she had bolted out.

                She had run to the cook as fast as she could and told her what was going on. When Mrs Fairweather had come to take a look, they had both seen (before slamming the door shut) “a stream of white steam or smoke that ran to the ceiling.”

                “It didn’t flow out slowly, though,” said the cook, “not the way steam would; it poured out in a gush like a river! Well, I knew that whatever was in there couldn’t be fit to breathe, so I ordered everybody out of the basement. You hear too many stories of people choking to death on smoke and such. But there was something else as was strange about it— I stood not ten feet away from the thing, and it verily _oozed_ cold. Freezing cold!” The girl nodded empathically at her words.

                I thanked them both. In all likelihood, I announced, what we had witnessed was a leak of subterranean gas. What had caused it I could not tell, but since no-one had experienced any kind of symptoms of illness, it was reasonable to assume that the substance was harmless. I commended the cook on her quick thinking and dismissed everyone.

                Though my explanation was received without opposition at the time, I can tell it was not altogether accepted. While it is preposterous to assume a connection between an attack by unknown brigands and an odd but natural geological phenomenon, it is plain that a lively imagination might make up such a thing. Somehow the “strange mist” quickly became kin to Sergeant Scorsby’s “shadows like ink”, and in a house like this whispers spread fast. I told my three confidants — Lumthorne, the butler, and the housekeeper —to put an end to such talk wherever they heard it.

                I don’t need the maids and the workmen getting started on the jammed windows. Saradomin knows what they’d make of those.


	16. 29th of Raktuber, year one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 16, in which Ingram visits Paterdomus.

                29th of Raktuber, year one

               

               There have been no further incidents, nor has there been further talk among the servants. According to Lumthorne, the housekeeper gave a thorough scolding to two maids who kept going on about faces in the mist — a later addition, apparently, for such tales tend to grow in telling — and after that, the gossip died down.

                Other good news is that the restoration is almost complete. The interior walls have been finished, and once the paint is dry, I can have the drawing room treasures put on display.

                In the meantime, while the house is full of the stink of paint and wood varnish, I’ve continued my interrupted exploration of Silvarea. The other day I made my way to the excavation on the other side of the hill, and there had a brief chat with some amiable students of archaeology. One of them would have wanted to show me a restored underground temple at the site, but to my disappointment,  an unforeseen complication — a bizarre, unhealthy odour issuing through the entrance shaft — forced him to drop the plan.

                Today I visited the Paterdomus. I had only seen that magnificent edifice in drawings before, but after three hours of walk, it did not disappoint in life. It is a splendid piece of late Fourth Age architecture, built from the first limestone to be extracted from the mine (much lighter in colour than the lower strata, I noticed) and decorated with marvellous stained-glass windows. I’ve seen a few of its coevals — among them a chapel in Asgarnia, now overrun by goblins— but none that could rival its beauty or workmanship.

                Upon arrival I was greeted by a monk of Saradomin, who introduced himself as Brother Hiylik. Having learned that I was his new neighbour, he bade me welcome warmly and asked if I’d stay for a cup of tea. Once I had accepted his invitation, he added that regrettably only he and another friar were present, as the temple’s custodian, Father Ivan, was currently visiting his native Morytania. His business there, Brother Hiylik assured me upon seeing my expression, was peaceful and safe.

                After tea, the good friar gave me a tour of the shrine. The border must be a lonely place to be stationed, for he seemed just as starved for company as I felt, and we both relished the chance for social chat. Brother Hiylik was also clearly something of an expert in the shrine’s history, and as such men always do, he clearly enjoyed lecturing an eager pupil on the various battles fought on the spot, the blessing cast on the river, and the legendary heroes depicted in the stained-glass windows.

Lastly, the monk took me to the terrace overlooking the Salve, and I had my first view of the forbidden land.

                It did not look hostile in the daylight. A path from the bridge disappeared into the dark woods, which extended as far as the eye could see. A few miles away, almost concealed by the low-hanging mist, a few columns of smoke gave away a hidden village. To the north, I could see the decaying ruins of a tower of some kind; to the south, a low marshland that vanished into a thick, milky haze. I would have described it as run-down and bleak, but hardly frightening, and I said so to Brother Hiylik.

                He smiled weakly as he heard my verdict, and replied:

                “It does not, Mr Golves, not in the sun and not from this side of the river. But you do not want to see it under other conditions, not even after the peace…”

                As we parted, the friar regretted that I had not been able to meet Father Ivan. He was terribly young for his office, he said, but very competent and dedicated. When the priest came back, he would most likely come and visit me. Having assured Brother Hiylik that both he and the good Father would be welcome at Gulvas Mansion any time, I left for home.


	17. 30th of Raktuber, year one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 17, in which Ingram receives mail, and begins to delve into the mystery of his ancestor.

                30th of Raktuber, year one

               

               The cart came by today, bringing — to my surprise — the replies to all the letters I had sent out. Firstly, Dimintheis remains occupied with his own troubles, similar to mine — he has won Fitzharmon Hall back, but what with the way that swine of a cousin lived and squandered his money, the house is in an atrocious condition. Nonetheless, he promises to visit when the opportunity presents itself.

                Next, copies of the city annals and parish records came from the Palace library and the Church of Varrock respectively, with an order to return the books once I was done studying them. Whatever I wish to copy, I will have to copy myself.

                The third package likewise bore an official seal, and was labelled as having been sent from the city law courts. Underneath a neatly written letter signed by the head clerk of the legal archives, I found a veritable treasure of documents pertaining to Ormod Gulvas and his family. Since I was confirmedly his kinsman (the letter stated), there was no legal obstruction as to why I couldn’t have the papers for my perusal. At the bottom of the pile of slightly decayed leather folders, filed fastidiously in a separate case, was the report of Judge Rathbone Grafham on the “Death of Ormod Gulvas and the Murders of his Domestic Servants”. It was twelve pages long in the judge’s rigid, minuscule hand, and it contained (at a glance, I have yet to read it through) a detailed description of the scene of crime, several testimonies, and a coroner’s statement.

                In the report I noticed also repeated allusions to “Ormod Gulvas’ Last Will and Testament”, but to my disappointment no such document was contained within. I leafed through every file in the crate in search for it, until I noticed a tidy little post scriptum on the other side of the archive clerk’s letter. In short, it said, Ormod Gulvas’ testament was not included in the papers sent to me — not through error, but because the only copy had been lost years ago. Fortunately, Ormod’s orders concerning his inheritance were recorded in another item, which I could find in the appropriate file.

                In contrast to the three bulky packages, the last response was contained in a slim envelope, but its contents proved all the more captivating. Rather than suffering a several weeks’ wait, I had paid to have my letter to the Wizards’ Tower teleported to the recipient, and to have the reply likewise sped back to me. Nevertheless, given the amount of correspondence the institution must handle, I was surprised to see it so soon.

                Inside the envelope was a very long letter, signed by Wizard Borann, the head librarian of the Tower. No records of Ormod Gulvas’ visits remained in the archives (he began once past the usual formalities), for the simple reason that they had been incinerated together with everything else in the explosion of year 70. However, upon receiving my letter he had done what he usually did in such cases, and had passed my request to several other magical institutions.

                After a good amount of digging, his colleague at the Wizards’ Guild in Yanille had located something that might provide at least a partial answer to my enquiries. It was a pair of letters, both dated in year 21 of the Fifth Age, and addressed from Wizard Whipple of the Tower to Wizard Delapoer of the Guild. These two had evidently kept quite a close correspondence over the years, and their letters were frequently accessed by magical historians.

                There were two letters in the collection that mentioned Ormod. They were dated three months apart, and each told briefly of his visits at the Tower. I have transcribed the relevant passages here, though in order to facilitate my own work, I’ve modernized the spelling and chosen contemporary words to replace some of the more opaque archaisms. In the first letter Whipple writes:

                _“Mr Gulvas, the merchant who is one of our institute’s main suppliers of runestones, arrived on an unannounced visit yesterday evening and demanded to see Archmage Peaslee immediately. Given both his aggressive manner and the hour of the day, only his prominence kept him from being turned out of doors. Nonetheless, the senior wizards demanded that he adhere at least to the barest laws of courtesy — that he wait until morning, for the Archmage had already retired for the night. After he reluctantly conceded, Gulvas was shown to the best guest quarters, where he reportedly spent the night pacing around in his room and muttering to himself so loudly the servants could hear it in the hallway, but of such terrible things that they refuse to repeat it._

_He has always been known for having an appalling temper and a tendency for perverse moods — not to mention an utter disregard for any kind of decorum — but his goods keep this institute operational, and that leaves us with no room to protest his conduct._

_This morning Gulvas would scarcely wait until breakfast was over before he positively forced his way to Peaslee’s study. He stayed there for several hours, during which several senior mages were called in, while others listened to the muffled uproar outside. He had never been an easy man to deal with, a colleague remarked to me, but this uncontrolled fiendishness was new. Then, before the clock in the hall had struck noon, the merchant stormed out as abruptly as he had arrived, pausing once at the bridge to yell a threat over his shoulder._

_“Or find another one to slave for your precious stones!”_

_I don’t know what he demanded, but the leaders of the four orders have shut themselves in Peaslee’s study since.”_

                The second letter is dated a month prior to Ormod’s death, and its passage concerning him is much shorter.

                _“The rune merchant Ormod Gulvas, of whom I have spoken before, returned yesterday. Two of our mages were sent to see him shortly after his first visit, but the man reportedly drove them out of his house in a fit of rage. After that, he sent Archmage Peaslee several missives of an increasingly disturbed and threatening nature._

_Therefore, when he showed up at the bridge last night, the guards were ordered not to let him pass. He stayed there for some time, screaming abuse and threats, until turning back and disappearing the way he had come._

_His deliveries have grown irregular of late, which has led the orders to look for other possible sellers to replace him. Fortunately they may have already located such a trader in Asgarnia.”_

                What could he have possibly wanted of them? Was there some connection between what he sought from the wizards and his obsession with the sub-cellar tunnels? And was the failure to obtain whatever he pursued the reason for his final, murderous madness?

                Perhaps the papers in the side-study will offer some kind of an answer. Now that I have the additional material to support my research, I can begin a systematic survey of his them.


	18. 32nd of Raktuber, year one

                 32nd of Raktuber, year one

               

                Today there was another interruption to my work, this time a joyous one: the renovation is complete. Every piece of polished furniture is in place; the varnish has dried on every inch of the oak wainscoting. This afternoon I concluded the mission by ordering the paintings to be mounted.

                They look down on us now from every wall of the mansion — the dark, striking features of young Ormod, the ashen and mild-eyed face of his wife, the son who looks so much like the mother. Landscapes grace the halls and corridors, some showing the banks of Salve, others the lush fields about my beloved, meandering Lum.

                The only portrait of Ormod as an old man received a seat of honour at the head of the entrane hall stairs. I could not have placed it anywhere else, regardless of what I have read and learned in the past weeks. It is truly the gem of the collection, not only on the account of its subject, but because of the indomitable ability of the artist.

                It shows in profile a hatchet-faced and white-haired man of perhaps sixty, dressed in the velvet finery of a wealthy, turn-of-the-age merchant. Every crease on the severe features, every glint of light on the cloth is painted with skill that would not pale next to the greatest treasures of Varrock Museum. And while most portraits of the era tend to suffer from a certain waxiness and rigidity, no life is certainly absent from this one’s expression or eyes.

                Though the background fades to a skilfully executed chiaroscuro, one can decipher in the shadows the outline of a recessed bookcase, which identifies the room at the very study where I sit and write. By my approximation the artist was seated in front of the library door, while Ormod stood perhaps a foot behind my chair, looking out of the window in which I now see my own reflection.

                _(A passage has been expunged here. This time Ingram did so thorough a job erasing it that no amount of trickery can reveal its contents. —A.W.)_

                In any event, the effort is now finished. The last of the workmen left an hour ago — Mr Stonemason with them — and I must say the silence is pleasant. I have spared neither expense nor time in returning my ancestral seat to its one-time glory, nor have I let the many setbacks deter me. My family’s manor — the manor Gontamue would have gladly left to rot and decay — has risen again, and looks now at the dawn of a new age the way it did in my forefathers’ day.


	19. 34th of Raktuber, year one

                34th of Raktuber, year one

 

                Having spent the past days engaged in the literary detective work of deciphering, comparing, and matching up notes, I have managed to arrange most of Ormod’s records into something resembling a chronological order. This has been no small feat, for as time went by, his writing gradually lost all coherence and legibility, with the final items being nothing but fragmented utterances. Nevertheless, by looking for references to specific events, and by analysing the deterioration of his handwriting, I have been able to establish a rough timeline of his last months.

                It appears Ormod began to use the side-study sometime in the Moevyng of year 21. This would be shortly after the loss of his son Lenian, who according to the Varrock parish records died in Rintra of the same year, aged nine. It might be worth mentioning that unlike the adjacent entries, Lenian’s mentions neither a cause of death nor a place of interment.

                Until that point, the spacious studio in the west wing had had been enough for Ormod, but now he evidently craved more privacy. One would presume that such a change of mind would have been connected to the death of his child, but his papers make startlingly few references to the boy. To the contrary, his desire to work in the closet appears to have been due to the “prying” of his “indolent and disloyal” servants.

                Yet on the whole, the early items are ostensibly normal. In the beginning he still writes neatly in expensive, leather-bound books, dating his entries carefully, and always beginning a new entry from a fresh page. He relates mostly everyday events, with only occasional mentions of his failing health and oppressive moods. Even so, there are certain passages in them that reveal a queer track of thought, and which I believe would strike me as disturbing even if I didn’t know what became of their author.

                Here is an excerpt from one of the earliest entries:

_“I am never quite calm anymore, but suffer from a constant and peculiar impression of not being alone. Only sleep makes the sensation release its grip on me, but then I am assaulted by dreams so vivid and intense they would make a weaker man dread slumber. The cook proposed that she concoct me a soothing herbal mixture, but I turned her offer down. Such poisons dull the mind, and are fit only for the elderly and dying.”_

In another item written a few days later, he speaks of taking to the side-study:

_“I have forbidden my staff from entering this chamber. I had a new lock installed on the door, to which only I have the key. I cannot abide their constant espionage and malicious interfering._

_Try as I might to instruct them otherwise, they never seem to let me alone when I work in my study in the west wing…always hovering by the door or lingering in the corridor outside; spying, listening, waiting for me to leave so they might sneak in for a look._

_I know they’re going through my books. They think I cannot notice that items have been shifted around on the desk; that volumes have been pulled out and replaced on the shelves…the maids claim that they do it in order to dust, but I know better.”_

Indeed, it is plain that Ormod held all his domestics in deep contempt, with a special hatred reserved for the nurses who took care of him. And since the servants were the people who were around him the most, it follows that they bore the brunt of his fits of rage and paranoia. Two months later, his delusions had grown worse:

                _“They do not only spy on me, but report their findings elsewhere, I know it…The girl has worked here only a few weeks, but I’ve already recognized her as another interloper…today I cornered her in the library and demanded to know who she works for. She had the insolence to feign obliviousness, but the charade was unconvincing. What kind of a fool must she take me for to think that tears might make me lenient towards a spy? I asked what her employer paid her and promised her twice the sum for his name. At the end, she rushed past me and fled the house.”_

                During these paragraphs Ormod’s still otherwise tidy hand grows shaky, and the letters become scrawled, having often been drawn with enough pressure to tear the parchment. Typically such sections are followed by neatly written and entirely unrelated additions, presumably made once he had calmed down. I could be reading too much into this, but the flat tone in these addenda seems almost calculated, as if their writer had been trying to feign normalcy to _himself._

                As months passed and his condition deteriorated, Ormod clearly spent more and more time in his little cell of a study, while at the same time the quality of his literary output began a drastic decline. Around Pentember he forsook the orderly little journals, and instead began to write on loose sheets of parchment. When finished, he would stuff them in the drawers, or stack them indiscriminately on the desk. After running out of space, he began to pin his papers on the walls, and finally allowed them to pile on the floor like leaves.

                The last pieces make little sense. These are scrawled on torn scraps, with repetitive and disjointed sentences fixating obsessively on obscure ideas. Here is one of the more lucid ones:

                _“Thieves! Traitors! Disloyal swine! I worked to build this house and I work to keep them all fed, where do they think their wages come from? Too weak to pull themselves out of their subservient positions, from the bowing and curtseying before men not better but merely more strong-willed than themselves… Too weak, yet too deceitful to even stay faithful to the one who feeds and shelters them…I’ll teach you to steal what I sweated for, animals…I’ll teach you to blanch at how I punish thieves and spies too, them and the soft fools from the Tower…”_

I can picture him now as he worked; a gaunt old man sitting in a windowless closet lit by a single candle, his body hunched protectively over his writing, his hand moving ever faster as the discarded pages pile around his feet.

                What brought on his madness I cannot say, nor can any living soul. But that he was not in sound mind was clear even to the patient, for he tried to get help — not from healers, who were no wiser then than they are now, but from the mages at the Wizards’ Tower. There are several entries which mention his visits there, but I fear discussing them will have to wait for another day. It is twenty to midnight, which means it is high time I retire.


	20. Night of the 34th of Raktuber

_(Night of the 34th.)_

               

                After waking up abruptly an hour ago, I found myself unable to sleep again. I couldn’t tell what had roused me, but I immediately found the air in the room to be nauseatingly oppressive. Unwilling to stay in that stifling smell, I left a window open and returned to my study.

                My pocket watch announces it is quarter past three. I will write until I begin to feel drowsy again, and then go back upstairs; I find it often cures insomnia better than any amount of tossing and turning.

                Perhaps it was my own agitation that woke me — I have reached a critical point in my studies of Ormod’s records, and with every page a clearer picture of his madness emerges. As the pieces fall together one by one, I find myself unable to leave the puzzle unfinished.

                 I have mentioned previously Ormod’s references to his dealings with the Wizards’ Tower. However, these mentions are often cryptic, and were it not for the letters sent to me by Wizard Borann, I would be able to make little of them.

                According to the letters, Ormod visited the Tower twice, once in Bennath and again in Fentuary. Using this knowledge as my guide, I was able to connect some confusing, undated entries to their proper contexts. The first one was obviously written shortly after his initial visit, reading:

                _“I have returned home. For all that I have done for their lot, the accursed mages tried to turn down my appeals…they claimed that no such spell as I require has ever been created, and that even if they succeeded, the enchantment would require years of testing._

_Testing, the blind fools! I have no years left, as if they could not see that…and no matter how badly the spell could wrong —Damage, they say! Injury! — what could be worse than this slow decay, this shameful degeneration…what do I care for the risks when I grow more and more debilitated every day.”_

                It appears that Ormod wanted the wizards to develop a spell that would halt the progress of his disease. Did he really think it possible, in that day and age? Even today, healing spells are notoriously unreliable, and can be used mainly to treat simple injuries. What hope then could have early-Fifth-Age-wizards had to create one that could cure an unidentified malady of the mind?

                Therefore, the next part is hardly surprising. The second letter by Wizard Whipple mentions that “ _Two of our mages were sent to see him shortly after his first visit, but the man reportedly drove them out of his house in a fit of rage.”_  I believe the following entry describes the same event:

                _“The damned impostors came all the way here, teleporting —using runes that I had sold them, by Saradomin — only to tell me that they had produced a spell, but could not make it work in practice. They tried casting it but failed…to no avail, to no effect they wasted even more precious runestones; runestones I had worked to procure for them…Frauds! Liars! I told them to not return._

_The scroll lies on my desk with its maddeningly incomplete inscriptions and diagrams.  They thought that I don’t know the mysteries of rune-magic, that I can’t read a spell-chart. Am I too low-born, too crude? Can’t I understand spellcasting, I who have spent my life dealing in magic? …When it is plain at a glance that there is something missing from it, not a source of power but a way to channel it properly…charlatans.”_

                Finally, after the second, disastrous trip to the Tower, Ormod writes this:

                _“They wouldn’t receive me! They turned me back at the bridge like a beggar...their tower wouldn’t stand without me, and they turn me away in my hour of need. What corruption, what treachery, what duplicitousness can allow a man to act in such a manner, to betray his benefactor when he needs help the most?_

_The old man was wrong, a liar like so many others I’ve known. Whatever lies in the basement shall stay there, stay behind the leering door, the door whose carved symbols mock my plight, mock me even as the voices speak, all the voices together, and the small, clear, pleading one above them all.”_

For a long time this confused me. I will not even touch the rest of the final sentence, but it clearly refers to the sealed door in the sub-basement. But what was the connection between these two — the door, and his second, unfortunate visit to the wizards whom he had already spurned once?

                This puzzled me thoroughly, until I came across a series of entries that detailed the events between the wizards’ call at the mansion and Ormod’s second journey to the Tower.

                It is clear that after the spell proved a failure, my ancestor was at loss at what to do. All his adult life he had held an unfailing faith in the power of rune-magic, but when he needed help the most, it had let him down.

                Despairing, he turned his back to magic — the power of progress and civilisation — and looked instead to the world of his childhood. He began to visit the seers and soothsayers of his own tribe, travelling from village to village, offering a reward to any who could help him.

                At first, Ormod had little luck. He had long ago cut ties with his people, and was regarded by most as little better than a traitor. Many of the mystics refused to even see him, while those who did were utterly perplexed by his case. Then, as he was already losing hope, he stumbled upon someone who could help him. The meeting must have invigorated him, as the next item displays unusual clarity:

                _“I met him today. The old man received me in his abode, a thatch-roofed and dirt-floored hut not unlike the one I grew up in. The smell of smoke and earth in the only room was overpowering, and almost overpoweringly familiar._

_I found him reclining by the fire pit, where he huddled under a pile of rugs. He was entirely blind, not to mention more or less bedridden, but there was no trace of senility in his manner._

_Whether he was the most skilful seer in the lands east of the mountains — as the villagers claimed — I cannot say, but at least he was the only one who could tell me anything that is of use._

_He said that my freedom lay deep beneath my house; the thing that would set me free was buried deep under the foundations. There was nothing else that he could tell me of it, but of this point he was adamant._

_We are now hastening home, and once there, I shall have the cellar floor torn open. It is the loose patch of earth near the staircase, I know it. The spot where the statues were found when they were digging the foundations, and they figured they could keep something like that from me…thieves! Always thieves, thinking I’ll not learn of what they’ve done…”_

                And so the last piece falls in place. Knowing his health was deteriorating, Ormod sought out the wizards, hoping that they would create a spell to cure him. When they failed to do so, he turned to soothsayers, one of whom advised him to look beneath his house. He tunnelled and tunnelled —digging and digging through seven or eight ancient flights, until his progress was stopped by the “leering door”, the door in the vault.  Is that why he went back to the wizards? Did he hope they could open it for him? In any case he returned home dejected. “ _The old man was wrong, a liar like so many others I’ve known”_ he wrote, and less than a month later Ormod and all of his servants were dead.

                Ten to five. If I were to go to the porch, I could see dawn’s first light colouring the sky over Morytania. This is ridiculous. I shall return upstairs for three hours of sleep, a fit punishment for staying up all night. But before I do, there is one more passage I must add. It comes from one of Ormod’s older journals, a badly moisture-damaged volume from his earlier years. It is appropriate here, as it explains the baffling reference to statues and thieves in the previous excerpt.

                _“[W]ho while the cellars were being hollowed out, came across an ancient stonework structure […] away from it a group of seven stone statues of hooded figures holding ceremonial staves. None of us could tell even […] then two more of marble […] superhuman size and inhuman appearance […] ordered them to be placed on display according to my instructions._

_Later […] told me that the carpenter had pocketed something found in the ruins […] tried to leave that night, I had him seized, and ordered a servant to search his person. In his pockets were discovered a dozen polished gemstones, all of high quality and greenish tint. […] Upon closer inspection, […] the eye-sockets […]  statues. The carpenter […] no more._

But seven smaller stone statues? Three by the staircase, one in that damned closet. Where are the rest? Where three more? That’s where he got them, in the basement. The statues, the furnace-room stonework, the tunnel with the stairs. This entire hill is hollow. Hollow and full of ancient ruins, the Abyss knows how far below they reach or what made them…or the other statues! The great marble ones in the entrance hall…inhuman features indeed, the nightmare things and their faces.


	21. 1st of Pentember, year one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 21, in which Ingram finds out what happened in his house.

                1st of Pentember, year one

               

               I had intended to make another excursion to the dig site today, but the weather has forced me to alter my plans. When I woke up this morning, groggy from my short sleep, the first thing I saw were the heavy drops whipping the diamond-paned windows. By the time Lumthorne had finished my shave, the rain had turned into a violent downpour that has not ceased once since.

                Yet I cannot say I am entirely dissatisfied. Owing most likely to my night-time activities, I’ve felt weak and lethargic all day, and the storm has given me an acceptable excuse to be lazy. When the weather clears, however, I’ll head straight to the excavation. Now that I don’t have to worry about delays to the renovation anymore, I want to get hold of one of the archaeologists, and see what they’ve got to say about the statues and the basement.

                Still, with things being as they are, I stayed indoors and returned to my work. As I had finished my summary on the chronology of Ormod’s writings last night, this meant I was free to move to the next item — Judge Grafham’s report.

                Here I hit another obstacle. Not a practical or a material one, but one of attitude — a rather frivolous, emotional one.

                For while so far I have pursued my project with the greatest enthusiasm, I must confess I was not excited about the following part. Though generally speaking not even the grisliest histories upset me, I realized I had little desire to read an explicit account about a massacre in my own home. Particularly so in the wake of the bloodbath in the pass, which I admit provoked in me a quiet dread that has yet to fade entirely.

                Nonetheless, eventually I forced myself to sit down, and armed with a pot of tea, set out to tackle the report, of which I present here a short summary.

The scene of crime, the report began, had been discovered the following morning, when a lad from a nearby farm — there still were a few where the excavation spreads now — had come to bring fresh milk to the mansion. Having left his milk-tins on the front stairs as he did every day, he had noticed that the door was ajar, and that there seemed to be no lights on in the house whatsoever. In fact, no sound seemed to issue from inside at all, nor was there smoke coming out of the chimneys. Out of curiosity, he had taken a look inside, where in the dark and silent hall he had spied a prone figure lying behind the entrance hall staircase. This, Grafham states flatly, was the body of Ormod Gulvas’ first footman, whose throat had been slit with a kitchen knife.

                The boy had run back home to tell his father of his discovery, and the father in turn had alerted the city guards. With the soldiers arrived Grafham, who having witnessed the full extent of the carnage described it thus:

                _“Ormod Gulvas himself and all the sixteen People whom he Employed in his Household as Servants were found Deceased inside the Manor in various Parts of the House & slain with great Violence save for the Master, who had died by his own Hand from taking Poison._

_Gulvas’ body was discover’d in the Manor’s Crypt, which lies in its Basement, where having committed his atrocious Deeds he had retired to die. On his Person was found a Scroll on which was recorded his Last Will and Testament, whereby he openly confessed the Murders of the Servants._

_The rest of the Deceased were Located as follows:_

_Mr P.D., First Footman, found in the Hall, his Throat having been slit with a Knife which Gulvas then had stuck in his Back._

_Mrs D.T., Housekeeper, found at the foot of the Basement Stairs, her Neck having been broken either by a long Fall or brute Force._

_Miss N.E., Chambermaid, found in the Servants’ Quarters, died of being strangl’d with her own Pinafore._

_Miss K.S., likewise a Chambermaid, found in the Bathroom of the Guest Quarters, her Face & Skull having been crushed by being repeat’ly hit against the Floor._

_Mr C.M., Butler, found in the Scullery, eviscerated._

_S.E., Page Boy, found in an Upstairs Corridor of the western Wing, died from numerous stabbing Wounds, others of which were in his Body and Chest with one being through the Eye._

                And so on. Grafham notes that Ormod _“must have retained an unusual physical Strength, this being despite both his advanc’d Years & ailing Health. He seems to have attacked his female Victims unarmed, trusting he could easily subdue them, but chose to employ a Weapon against each of his male Victims, whom he knew to be more evenly matched against his Vigour.”_

After several pages of description and analysis, the good judge finally concludes:

                _“Having read & inspect’d the Last Will and Testament of Ormod Gulvas, I can truthfully declare that although he names a Reason for his Actions, it is too incredible to be regarded with Sincerity. His Acts were those of a Madman gripped by the most frightful and unnatural Lunacy, and the perverse Ideas expressed in the Testament reveal no rationally acceptable Motivation, but only the Workings of a deeply & irrevocably diseased Mind. May Saradomin have mercy on his Soul._

And there the story ends. The servants were laid to rest in a Varrock graveyard, but the fate of Ormod’s body is verified in neither the report nor the parish records. And here is the crypt again, _the manor’s crypt, which lies in its basement —_ which confirmedly exists, but which no living soul has to my knowledge seen.

                The hands on my watch are creeping towards eleven. I dismissed Lumthorne at nine, and an hour ago I heard a maid tiptoe past the door, extinguishing the lamps for the night. I ordered them to do that at ten, regardless of how late I stay up in working. I have no trouble seeing myself upstairs in candlelight.

                I will not repeat my yesterday’s mistake of staying up all night. I shall retire presently, as soon as I have fetched reading-matter from the library.


	22. Night of the 1st of Raktuber

_In the original journal, the following section was written at the bottom of the previous entry’s last page. Sometime after writing it, however, Ingram tore it off entirely, and stuck the offending scrap in a desk drawer, where it was discovered among other discarded papers. And while compassion and modesty would otherwise have me leave the piece where it was buried, as an editor my mission is to tell the truth in its entirety, and as such, I have chosen to include here what Ingram so badly wanted to forget — an instance in the series of many such events to come._

***

 

_(Night of the 1st.)_

 

               Before I go, there is something I wish to write down, as it weighs on my mind greatly. Writing about things has always helped me think clearly, and I hope that by recording my fears I can alleviate them.

               As I go through the records, I naturally also hunt for the tracks of my own family — a good half of the mansion’s masters have been my kin, after all. And while I’ve focused on matters concerning the estate and its changing ownership, I can’t help but look for evidence of something else: aberrations.

               I am of course talking about Ormod and his madness. Don’t all competent healers agree that nervous conditions and manias run in families, even if the pattern of inheritance is fantastically complex?

               So, I look for anomalies, and at a startling rate I find them: They stare back at me with their hypnotic eyes from the innocuous branches of my own family tree.

                Here is Ormod, the mass-murderer. Here is his grand-nephew Oswin, Abrecan’s youngest, who died mad — though what the records describe might have been syphilis.

                Here is Bertram DeMarne, a suicide who hanged himself in this very house in the year 112. I wish the parish clerk had omitted the location of his death.

                I remember aunt Viola, my father’s sister, who periodically locked herself in her room and refused to eat. It all comes back to me now that I think of it— the suffocating stench of potpourri and limpwurt tea, the permanently drawn yellow curtains. She died in her forties, long before I came of age.

                Then there was my grandfather and his temper. He was the one who dropped the name DeMarne (after some legal dispute or another; not out of necessity but out of spite and pride) and assumed instead the surname of a distant ancestor. He became of Golves, a corruption of Gulvas, and that was the name he passed on to his sons.  It was curiosity about my name, in fact, that first lead me to take an interest in the mansion. An ancestral home, long abandoned, far, far away at the edge of the kingdom…

               Of course, the last thing a man in my situation ought to do is inflame his imagination with such conjectures. But nevertheless, with all this evidence in my face, all these _precedents…_ it makes me fearful to think of my own reactions  —

               I shall head to bed now.


	23. 2nd of Pentember, year one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 23, the author's favourite.

               2nd of Pentember, year one

                               

               The rain has continued unabated into a second day. A thick iron-grey mist has settled over Silvarea, and with it into the house has crept an uncanny, damp chill, which no amount of fires can dispel. In the rooms lingers a repugnantly musty odour —what the housekeeper calls an “old-house smell” — which to me, if not anyone else, is eerily reminiscent of those early, confusing visits to the mansion.

                What's more, the deluge has cut us off from the rest of the world. The road has transformed into a murky, rushing stream, and before it dries out, neither sentry nor cart will come here from the city. While this poses no immediate problems (the cellars being stocked sufficiently to feed us for several weeks), it has once again made me acutely aware of our isolation.

                The weather seems to have disturbed everyone’s humours, and I am no exception myself. Owing to the combined effects of the chill and continued insomnia, I remain fatigued and inefficient to the point where I find it hard to focus my thoughts.

                Despite having retired at a seemly hour, I spent half the night awake again, first reading, then lying about and listening as the rain beat the slate tiles of the roof. After hours of waiting, I finally sunk into a dream-disturbed half-sleep into which the echoes of the waking world somehow carried. At one point I imagined seeing a faint light through my closed eyelids, and subsequently experienced a brief impression of not being alone. But before I could react, I was abruptly roused by the thunder — a simultaneous flash and roar, right atop the mansion — which never repeated again, no matter how long I waited in the dark.

                Yet I know it was neither the storm nor the stale air that kept me from sleeping this time. It was neither of those, but Judge Grafham’s report. While I did not want to admit this even to myself, reading the damned thing had affected me intensely. The hideous scenes described in it kept coming back to me — the scenes, and the knowledge that the slaughter had occurred in rooms right next to the one I lay in.

                Nonetheless, since the weather has taken other options out of the question, I plan to dedicate the day to continuing my work. Done with Ormod, I am ready to move on to researching the house’s later inhabitants. Before I begin, however, I will take back to side-study his archived papers — now catalogued and filed in well-ordered leather folders — which take up too much space here. What’s more, I don’t like having the damned things about me.

                Since I intend to concentrate fully on my work, I told the cook that I would make do with a cold lunch today, and ordered her to have it sent to my study. I also dismissed Lumthorne until evening, with orders to let the others know that I wish to be left alone. Once I’ve taken the finished paperwork back to the east wing, I can spend the rest of the day immersed in the lives of my predecessors.

_(Here follows a series of blots and messy erasures. They concentrate on the left-hand edge of the page, as if Ingram repeatedly tried to begin a new section, but gave up each time. When the next paragraph finally begins, his hand is unusually even, as if like Ormod, he was trying to create an illusion of composure.  —A.W.)_

_(Evening.)_

I am fearful of beginning this entry, for I will discuss in it things that would make any reader — even if this book is intended to have none — think me a madman. Not because of the events as such, for _individually_ they could all be attributed to logical explanations, but because of certain inferences that one could see me drawing from the _combination_ of the happenings. It is indeed for the best that I relate nothing but the bare facts, writing in language as plain as possible. Perhaps thus  I can make some sense of the matter myself.

                The event in question is a short incident that occurred this morning sometime before ten o’clock, in this very house, with no witnesses other than myself. I had left my study to deposit certain items in a closet at the other end of the house, the so-called side-study, which once had been Ormod Gulvas’ private workroom.

                No servants were about on the east wing ground floor, and no-one certainly saw me as I slipped into the tiny, windowless storeroom, my arms full of bound leather folders. Leaving the door open and my candle on the antique desk, I then proceeded to shelve the files.

The entire incident cannot have taken five minutes.

                I was immersed in the task of arranging the folders in the correct order, when suddenly and without warning the door slammed shut. I can’t quite describe the shock, for in that single second so much happened— the bang of wood on wood, the click of the lock, and perfect darkness falling at once as the gush of air blew out my candle.

                From the very beginning, the draught had caused problems. It had a tendency to swing and slam the doors, and for that reason I had ordered door-wedges to be placed in all the rooms. However, I had not deemed one necessary for the closet — not as much because only I went there, but because the door opened inwards.

                For a few seconds I stood petrified in the dark, listening for the slightest sound from the hall — for I instinctively thought that someone had _pulled the door shut._ It was an absurd idea, I can recognize that now, yet right in that moment I could come up with no other explanation. But nothing stirred outside; no floorboards creaked, and the only thing I could hear was my own rapidly beating heart.

                When the sheer physical shock had subsided enough for me to act, I groped my way over to the door, only to find it locked. I tried the handle once, then again, but to no avail. What’s more, I had no way of relighting the candle, and was thus reduced to fumbling in the dark. Nonetheless, at that point I was still reasonably calm, and my hands were steady as I meticulously went through my key-ring, feeling the bows for the distinctive shape of the side-study key. When my fingers finally hit upon its intricate contour, I slid it into the lock — where it ran into a tiny, unseen object.

                It felt hard, and for some reason I intuitively disliked the scraping sound it made against the metal. It reminded me of something shudderingly familiar, but I could not quite tell what. In the absence of anything else to use, I tried to dislodge the thing with the tip of a quill, but it remained stuck fast. Therefore — though I found the thought somewhat humiliating — I had no other choice but to call for help.

                And so I cried out, first quietly, then louder, and finally at the top of my voice — but to no effect. I drew the conclusion that I was alone in the wing, but remembered simultaneously that the side-study is more or less above the kitchen, which is never empty. So, doing my best to stay composed I stomped rhythmically on the floor, hoping that the sound would carry to the cellar. When this produced no result, I located the old oak chair, and banged the feet against the floorboards as hard as I could. _Someone_ would have to hear it.

                At last I perceived something — a rustling sound somewhere nearby, though I could not quite locate the direction. Rustling, followed by faint but approaching footsteps. Had someone come up from the basement?

                Feeling an immense relief wash over me, I called out:

                “Come around to the central corridor, the door is stuck!” I did not want to say _I_ was stuck, let alone that I had locked myself in a closet. The situation was ludicrous enough as it was.

                There was no response, but the footsteps halted. Whoever was in the adjacent room was standing right next to the partition, but perhaps he had not heard me properly.

                I called again, this time almost shouting:

                “Over in the central corridor! The closet door is stuck!” Nothing.

                At last I lost my temper, yelling:

                “ _In the central corridor, come to the side-study!”_ To punctuate my words, I rapped the back wall thrice with my knuckles.

For a few seconds everything was quiet. Then from the next room came a reply — not a voice, but three sharp knocks on the other side of the wall. I was flabbergasted. Could the servant not hear my shouting? Feeling entirely silly, I answered with three blows of my own. A brief silence followed, and again three blows came in return. _Tap, tap, tap._ My invisible visitor had big hands, and he knocked with more force than I did. I could not understand why he did not call out to me — for he was certainly close enough to be heard — but I was too relieved about having been discovered to give it much thought.

                _Tap-tap-tap,_ I knocked, this time on a different spot.

                _Tap-tap-tap,_ came the corresponding answer. He could hear me perfectly well.

                _Tap-tap-tap,_ I messaged.

                _Tap. Tap. Tap._

                _“In the central corridor!”_ I called at the top of my lungs. _“I’m in the side-study! Ormod’s study!”_

                There was another long silence, but then from the other side of the wall issued a new sound — not the sharp rap of knuckles, but the thump of a fist or an open palm — whoever was behind the partition was hitting it slowly and steadily, like a battering ram. I backed instantly away from the wall, but the reverberations seemed to carry along the floorboard. As the blows continued, their speed increased, until the mute visitor raised both hands to hammer the partition with a violence that shook the paneling inside, furiously, desperately, as if he was trying to break out —

                “Sir?” A small, cautious voice asked behind me. It was one of the maids. The closet door was ajar, and she was peeking in from the threshold.

                “Thank goodness you heard it,” I declared, trying to keep my voice from shaking as I turned to her. It was quiet in the corridor, for the banging had stopped the moment the door opened.

                “Yes, Mr Golves,” she said warily, wiping her hands on her crimson-stained pinafore. She was the new recruit from Draynor, I realized, the one who had seen the mist rise in the furnace-room.  “What can I do for you?”

                “Where were you?” I asked. “Before you came here?”

                “Downstairs, sir,” she replied, clearly taken aback. “In the kitchen. I was helping Mrs Fairweather with the jam.”

                “You were not in the next room?” I asked, motioning towards the wall.

                “No, sir,” she said, taken aback. “I came directly here. And no-one goes to the viewing-room, as you ordered, sir. It stays locked up except when we clean it once a week.”

                “Except now,” I retorted. “Didn’t you hear the racket?”

                She had not, and with that shy, open, bewildered face she could not have lied to me. She had been in the kitchen when someone upstairs had cried out “in a long, loud scream”. Excusing herself, she had rushed up to the ground floor and followed the sound to its source. I did notice she was very careful not to say “you screamed”.

                I had not screamed, nor had I heard a scream.

                I stared at her for a long time, bewildered and incredulous, but I did not contest her words. For as hard as it was for me to believe the girl, I understood all too clearly how absurd _my_ version would have sounded to her.

                Seeing that she knew nothing, I simply thanked her. Mrs Fairweather, I said, probably needed a hand with the jam.

                When the maid was gone, I quickly put away the rest of Ormod’s papers. Before I headed back to my study, I merely confirmed what I already knew by inspecting the adjacent viewing room. Whatever I had hoped or feared to find, I was not surprised when behind the door there greeted me nothing but my own reflection in the polished glass.

                There is no explanation to what happened, nor can I even begin a conjecture as to the identity of the stranger behind the wall. That someone _was_ there I am certain. I briefly considered questioning my staff, but grasped immediately how preposterous it would have looked — the master locking himself in a closet and panicking, then taking his embarrassment out on his domestics. What’s more, both the butler and the housekeeper agree that no servants at least _should have been_ present at the time.

                Nevertheless, certain facts remain which make the whole event damnably unnerving. First, the maid’s repeatedly asserted claim that she never heard the banging. And second, something I noticed only later — the viewing room lies against the side of the closet, not the back. Behind the study there is no room, but only the well around which the basement stairs are built.

                I will not speculate on this further. I will offer no theories.

                My watch reads quarter to eight. I will head upstairs now. At the end my cold lunch became a cold dinner, but I did disturb the cook at her jam-making with another request, one inspired by Ormod’s notes of all the damned things. The marrentill brew ought to be ready shortly, and Lumthorne will bring it to my bedroom. It will make me sleep. My work can wait until tomorrow — the annals, the parish records, and the sheaf of papers the pounding dislodged from its stash between the desk and the wall.


	24. 3rd of Pentember, year one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 24, in which the rain goes on and something is badly, badly wrong at Gulvas Mansion.

               3rd of Pentember, year one

               

                Given what is happening, I wish I had not taken the resting-potion last night. The draught turned out to be considerably more potent than I had anticipated, and after a night of uninterrupted but dream-ridden slumber, I have remained weak and addled well into the day. This is hardly desirable, for right now I’d need all of my wits in order to deal with the present situation. In short, we may have or may have had an intruder in the house.

                This much I know: Sometime before six o’clock this morning, a maid went to the kitchen to light the fires. She was alone, the rest of them still being back at the servants’ quarters. Upon entering the room, the first thing she commenced to do was to replace the burnt-out candles. (Only the entrance hall chandelier has enchanted ones; the rest of the house still depends very much on traditional methods of lighting.) Having begun with the ones by the door, she proceeded along one side of the room, going from wall-mounted holder to another, when she suddenly realized she was not alone.

                The end of the room was still dark, but in the farthest corner she could glimpse someone sitting on a chair with his back to her. What she described to me was “a thin man with long, white hair, sitting hunched in front of the stove”. She never saw his face, but she knew for certain that he was not one of the staff.

                                This alarmed her, as did the fact that the stranger had never reacted in any way to her presence. Nonetheless, instead of fetching the others, she decided to address him. After all, he might have been a visitor who had arrived during the night.

                “Excuse me, sir” was all she said. When the man did not respond, she repeated her words louder, but to no avail. He sat perfectly still, his body bent forward as if he was staring into an imagined fire. Thinking that the stranger perhaps did not hear well, she stepped closer with her candle. She was about to speak again, when abruptly, without turning around, the man had roared _“Leave me alone,”_ with such ferocity and rage that the girl turned around and fled the kitchen. Having stumbled back to the servants’ rooms, she quickly explained the situation to the others. However, by the time she returned with the butler, the chair by the stove was empty.

                They inspected the kitchen, the adjacent pantries, and the ancient furnace room, but found no signs of either the stranger or a break-in. Against the maid’s stubborn protestations, the incident was put down to a combination of a dark room and an overactive imagination. The housekeeper reprimanded her severely, and told her to think twice before raising a rumpus the next time.

                An hour later, the upstairs servants were heading to their stations, when they saw something was in fact amiss: the door to the neglected music room was ajar. What they found there, you could say, put the maid’s story in an entirely different light.

                They heard it before they saw it — a strange, irregular clanging. The western window — five feet from the ground and large enough to admit a man — was open, with the wrought-iron grid banging rhythmically against its frame in the storm-wind. On the floor was spreading a puddle of water. In a wind like this, eaves give no protection, and the rain had been blowing in through the open window overnight, if not for several days. The latch hung loosely from the frame, limp and useless. Right next to it, a single diamond-shaped pane was missing from the grid.

                At that point, Lumthorne decided to wake me up. That is what he did, and while I still sat in bed — feeble, sluggish, disoriented — he related the situation to me. He wanted my permission to have the house searched. Having received it he headed out again, meat cleaver in hand.

                For three hours the servants searched the mansion, checking every room and closet, but their hunt yielded nothing. All doors were appropriately locked, nothing of value had been touched. After every other recourse had been exhausted, Lumthorne himself descended into the sub-basement in lantern-light, but the new door halfway down the stairs was closed, its lock unmolested. Having inspected every corner, they at last gave up and reported the results to me. I commended them on their diligence, and seeing no other option, ordered them to resume their usual duties. As for myself, I have been in my study ever since, trying to make sense of the events through a potion-induced haze.

                I have had little use for the music room or its mute piano, and as such it stays locked. Like all unused rooms in the house, it gets dusted once a week, the last time having been four days ago. This means that at least in theory, someone could have broken in yesterday and stayed hidden overnight — but who would risk his life by ascending the hill in this weather? And if there is indeed an intruder, could he have been behind the wall —? No. Behind the side-study back wall is nothing but the walled-off well.

                While I have to admit that a coincidence of several freak occurrences _is_ possible — that we are indeed dealing with one case of fancy and another one simple breakage — I cannot disregard the other option yet.

                _(Night.)_

At nine-twenty tonight, Lumthorne came to my bedroom to tell me that another window had been broken, this time in the entrance hall. On this occasion though, he said gravely, the method was quite different. The butler had been locking up the silver in the dining room, when all of a sudden he had heard a deafening bang from the foyer. Startled, he had instantly dropped his task to rush to the hall, where to his horror he saw one of the high lancet windows on the façade had been smashed — evidently with terrible force, since not only was the glass broken, but the iron of the grid was bent out of shape. The butler alerted Lumthorne, who alerted me. By then, the lingering effects of the resting-potion were gone, and I followed him immediately to the entrance hall.

                I saw the thing myself — the mangled iron was twisted like copper wire, with rain falling in almost horizontally through the distorted frame. Whatever had done it, it had somehow disturbed the enchantment on the chandelier candles as well, for their flames hissed and flashed like lightning. The three of us stood there in the wavering light, staring at the destruction while the freezing, daemonic storm-wind howled about us, and I believe we all knew what it meant — we were no longer safe.

                There are few things under the sun that could wreak such havoc. A thunderball of immense potency would be the most comforting option, but it is highly unlikely. There is one other cause I can think of, a considerably more plausible one, though terrifying in its implications. It is the one I side with — taking into account the severity of the damage, I am of the opinion that the blast was caused by a powerful missile spell. The strange thing about it, though, is the direction. The shattered glass has fallen in a pattern that suggests that the force might have come from the inside. While this is not clear, even a possibility is alarming enough.

                We shall hold a vigil tonight. Though there is no way to guard every window in the house at once, with every room locked up we can keep watch over the corridors. Lumthorne and the butler will take care of the east wing. The two footmen will look after the west wing. I myself will be stationed in the entrance hall. While I pray that there will be no need for them, I had a cutlass brought up from the armoury for each of us.

                The time is ten past one. I write this sitting on my watch post on the stairs of the great, cavernous entrance hall. The torrential rain has never subsided, and pure, impenetrable darkness reigns outside. Half an hour ago I began to hear intermittent clashes of thunder, first faintly, but drawing nearer as the minutes passed. I counted seven seconds between the last flash and roar.

                Since the chandelier candles continued to flicker and wink, I brought two powerful dwarven lanterns to provide better light. These rest beside me on the steps, illuminating the shadowy hall with their steady, warm glow. They give me some sense of security, as does the sharp steel sword hanging on my belt. Contrary to the previous, I feel not a trace of drowsiness, but grow ever more alert with each approaching lightning.

                The servants report to me every half an hour. So far, none of us has seen anything out of place. Yet I have to say that if there ever was a time where a man might imagine things or fear his own shadow, it is tonight.

                Even so, I shall remain calm. My back is to the empty gallery; my eyes watch the door and the black, rain-streaked windows.

                If there is a trespasser in the house, we shall know by dawn.


	25. 4th of Pentember, year one

                 4th of Pentember, year one

                Morning.

                Our vigil is over. We kept watch from ten o’clock till six in the morning, and never saw nor heard a trace of an intruder. If there ever was one, he’s gone now.

                 There still is no explanation to either the stranger sighted in the kitchen or the broken windows. Nevertheless, until evidence pointing elsewhere is presented, I am willing to lay the blame on rational reasons. After all, it _is_ conceivable that a maid forgot to latch the window after airing the neglected room, and that the subsequent motions of the freely swinging frame dislodged one of the panes. Likewise, given the weather we have had of late —the weather we have had since the events in Kandarin last winter — an anomalous thunderball striking a hilltop mansion is not beyond belief.

                This is what I choose to accept as true, since at this point further speculation is not only futile but downright harmful. The recent incidents have affected all of us, and exciting one’s imagination with far-fetched notions would only make matters worse.

                However, before I declare the case closed, there remains a certain occurrence that I need to write about, reluctant as I am to even think of it. I refer to something that happened during the night — something I know can be rationally explained, but which nevertheless perturbs me.

                The thing took place sometime after three o’clock, when to my shame I gave in to the creeping fatigue and drowsed off for a few minutes. After — or at the same time — as I fell asleep, I underwent — I don’t know how to accurately term it — a phantasm of sorts; a night-terror.

                Let it be said that I do not write about what I experienced because I think the apparition was real. This is not at all the case. I write about it because it haunts me, and by writing I hope to banish the dreadful spectre so that it may not harass me in further dreams.

                The time, as I said, was near or about three o’clock. I cannot bring myself to say _three in the morning,_ for the term conjures up healthy associations of light and relief, neither of which were found in the primeval darkness of the black, tempestuous night. Having finished my last entry a few hours before, I now focused solely on staying awake. I had chosen as my watching-station the great staircase, from which I would intermittently rise to make a round about the hall, trying each door before returning to my seat. Though by then I did not truly expect to find anything behind them, the routine kept me alert.

                The thunderball had caused the spell on the chandelier candles to fail, leaving their wicks to smoulder with a feeble, reddish burn. Consequently, all the light I had issued from a pair of sturdy lanterns, whose yellow flames cast long, slender shadows across the floor. Both had been refilled before I commenced my vigil, and I had approximated that the oil would last until dawn.

                Nonetheless, as the hours passed I felt a terrible weariness steal upon me. The shock and excitement from earlier had evaporated, and try as I might, I felt my head droop on my chest. The last thing I recall is letting my eyes fall shut, thinking I could grant myself a few seconds of respite. But I must have nodded off instantly, for when I opened them again — and I have no idea how much later this was — something in the hall had changed.

                It was almost perfectly dark. The lanterns had been extinguished, and only the dying candles in the chandelier let off their sickly, red light. What’s more, I grasped slowly that all the sounds around me were uncannily muted. I could hear the rain and the flapping of the tarpaulin over the destroyed window, but only faintly, as if I were under water. I had collapsed to a reclining position on the stairs, and from the corner of my eye I could glimpse something moving — something grey and vaporous that seemed to flow about the edge of my vision— but when I tried to turn my head to see it better, I found I was paralyzed.

                The petrification was total. I could neither stir, nor blink, nor open my mouth. I could move my eyes, and I must have breathed, for no man can remain without air for that long, but otherwise I was as still as a cadaver. Above me in the darkness the marble colossi loomed like two guarding giants, and between them winked the evil, leering glow of the smouldering chandelier. I remember how I kept trying to avert my gaze, but somehow the bloodshot lights always floated mockingly back to the centre of my vision. Only two candles held on to their last fire, and the longer I was forced to look at them, the more intensely they reminded me of two dreadful, insane eyes that stared down at me from the impenetrable night.

                Finally, there was one more thing I was aware of — the nebulous grey vapour that hovered just outside my sight. At first I had taken it for an optical illusion, for like the candles, it seemed to move with the movements of my eye. But in time I grew convinced it was material — it appeared to be thickening, and something about the way it flowed seemed almost intentional. The spectral mist was definitely real, and as I sprawled there like a laid-out corpse, unable to either move or scream, it began to draw inescapably towards me.

                The rest of the vision did not progress fluidly, but in oddly bright flashes, like a series of pictures. In the first one I lay prone on the stairs, with the phantom vapour stealing upon me — _and the world went dark._

                  _I was drowning, unable to breathe—_

                In the next one, the haze seemed to have reached not me, but a spot somewhere above my head, with a distinct impression of _coalescing —_ rising, the outline terrifyingly suggestive—

                _Perfect blackness, the sense of not only choking but being choked by an immaterial hand_ …lightning! Lightning, that’s what the pictures are, lightning right atop the mansion, the muted roar coming at the same time with the blast…the next I cannot tell…the next flash and what it brought—

                The visitor stood on the step above me, his face bent over mine. I did not know him, but a diabolic fury distorted his cadaverous features; the thin mouth, the deep, blackened eye-sockets. And in those sockets burned fires, the deadly fires overhead…the horrible, smouldering fires that were both the dying candles and the eyes of the thin man with long, white hair.

                The vision lasted a heartbeat; a dragging, suffocating heartbeat in which I saw him — and it was over. I was sitting on the stairs upright, in a hall lit by the warm glow of two sturdy dwarven lanterns. I was alone.

                I stayed awake and alert for the rest of the watch. I did not mention my night-terror to anyone. And as a feeble radiance appeared in the clouded eastern sky, we called our vigil done. No-one had ever seen anything out of ordinary.

                It is eight o’clock now. I sent the servants to bed until eleven, but feeling restless, stayed up myself. I keep trying to continue my work, but the unslept hours are catching up with me, and my notes seem to make little sense. Concentrating is hopeless, and so I shall shortly head upstairs for a few hours’ slumber.

                We are alone, and in all likelihood we always were. An anxious kitchen maid thought she saw something in the dark, and the story wormed its way to the nightmare of a tired and shaken mind. The best of healers agree on these matters — that unsettling events may cause otherwise healthy people to imagine things, and that one’s fears may manifest in phantasms as well as dreams. And  Saradomin knows we have had of late enough _unsettling events_ to last us a lifetime.

                At the first opportunity, I shall send for workmen from the city. I need to have destroyed window repaired. The failing chandelier candles, on the other hand, had to my surprise returned to normal by morning. As the sun rose they were burning bright and steady once more, as if whatever had disturbed their enchantment was gone from the house.


	26. 4th of Pentember, year one, continued.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 26, in which we meet Father Ivan.

               4th of Pentember, year one, continued.

               Afternoon.                

I never made it upstairs at the end. After finishing the previous entry, I stared at the page for a while, unable to comprehend a single word of what I had just written. The fearful agitation that had sustained me throughout the night had abruptly vanished, and with it were gone all my pretensions of vigour. So, disregarding all regularity I gave up and let my head rest on my folded arms. I was asleep in seconds.

                I was woken around midday by the housekeeper. My sleep had been dreamless and uninterrupted, and I’m afraid she had to shake me quite vigorously before I came to my senses. She would not have entered my office uninvited, she told my bleary-eyed face, nor would she have otherwise roused me, but I had a visitor. It was the priest from Paterdomus, who had shown up at the door a few minutes ago. She added a few other things that I do not recall, but which amounted to her not thinking much about being housekeeper in a house where the housekeeper answered the door.

                With sleep still trying to drag me back to its sweet embrace, I was too disoriented to say anything beyond that I wanted the good Father be shown in and treated as a guest. She should let him know that I’d be there in a few minutes, once I had made myself decent.

                After she had gone, I sat there for a while, trying to regain my bearings. Something seemed off, and it took me a few confused seconds to make out what it was: the rain had stopped. I had grown so accustomed to its incessant thrum that the silence felt almost uncanny. The clouds had already dispersed, and outside my diamond-paned window a tentative sun lit up the pass. The misshapen weeds, weighed down with water, looked half-dead. The road was a trench of mud and puddles.

                I had neither washed nor changed since the previous day, and at the end my toilette consisted of washing my face and a quick combing. There was little else I could do without making my guest wait infinitely longer, and so I went to meet the guardian of Paterdomus unwashed and unshaven, reeking faintly of lamp-oil.

                I found him in the entrance hall, where he was still peeling off his leather galoshes, seemingly at ease. A freshly awoken (and equally unshaven) Lumthorne was present as well, and the two conversed amiably as the priest wrestled with his footwear. Having unshod himself he noticed me at last, and rose from his chair to greet me with the same cordiality, his tone not changing a note as he moved from servant to master.

                Like I had been told, Father Ivan was young — he could not be twenty-five, even if he had one of those soft-featured faces that will stay boyish until middle age. His unkempt, straw-coloured hair and almost oversized robes accentuated the impression of youth, but his manner and confidence were those of a grown man. Having introduced himself, he shook my hand vigorously and bade me welcome to Silvarea. His r’s rolled in the Morytanian way. There was more strength in his grip than I had anticipated.

                I don’t know what it was about the priest, but from the moment I saw him in the foyer, I felt a sense of inexplicable calm descend on me. Though I had barely recognised it, a silent, creeping dread had oppressed me ever since my arrival a month ago. It had never gone away, but I had ceased to notice it so long ago, only its sudden absence made me realize the feeling had been there in the first place. The tranquillity lasted while the Father was in the house, and it lingers quietly now that he’s gone.

                “Mr Golves,” he was saying now, as he let go of my hand. “Brother Hiylik told me of your visit, but I’m afraid the weather kept me from calling earlier.”

                “Which is quite understandable,” I replied. As I realized what he was saying, I could not hold my curiosity. “Speaking of which, I thought the road was ruined. You must have made quite an effort just to get here.” I could not help but eye his suspiciously clean robes. Lumthorne was holding the Father’s flat, broad-brimmed hat and travel cloak, and while both looked damp, neither was muddy.

                “Yes, the road is in a deplorable condition,” said Father Ivan cheerfully, “Fit for neither man nor cart. Which is why I did not take it. No, I came along the hill’s ridge, which is quite dry already.”

                “You came along the ridge?” I repeated, thoroughly confused. “How did you get to the door then, if I may so ask?”

                “Easily,” the young priest said modestly. “I climbed to the hill from the beacon tower, walked here along the crest, scaled down near your front stairs, and climbed back up along them.”

                “Scaled down? But that is a near-vertical face!” I exclaimed. “And quite slippery after all this rain, I would say.”

                “Lethally so, Mr Golves,” Father Ivan confirmed. “But please do not fear for me. I am quite an experienced rambler.”

                For a moment I had an involuntary and nonsensical vision of the priest scrambling through the piano-room window. It was somehow not hard to believe he would have been physically capable of it.

                “Please, forgive me, Father,” I said, “I’m afraid we have had a very chaotic past few days. I apologize for my appearance and the state of the house. It has been a very unusual time.” I could not help but glance at the tarpaulin-covered window as I spoke, but he did not seem to notice.

                “There is no need to apologize,” he replied, “for hardship. If you are currently occupied, I can call at another time.”

                “That is not what I meant,” I told him quickly, “Not at all. Please stay, Father.” It felt absurd to address him as such, conventions be damned. “Please,” I continued, “I believe — I think it would be much better if we sat down. Would you care for a cup of tea?

                “I think that is an excellent idea, Mr Golves,” he said. “Your household is of my parish now, which means that if anything is amiss, I would like to know if I can be of help. And tea would be wonderful, thank you.”

                ***

                So, fifteen minutes later I found myself sitting in the library, telling the entire story to Father Ivan’s open, honest face. I began with my purchase of the mansion, and proceeded through all the subsequent events —the strange ruins in the basement, my arrival after the attack in the pass, my visit to the quarry; the strange mist, yesterday’s panic, and our previous night’s vigil. I left out only two things: My night-terror, and the incident of the wall-tapper in the side-study.

                 My visitor listened attentively, sometimes asking questions for clarification, while we both drank tea and the young clergyman polished off a plate of jam biscuits at an alarming speed.

                There were a few times his reactions to what I was saying caught my attention. This happened first when I spoke of the massacre of the monks. Though he offered his condolences to the dead, upon hearing my remarks on the days of insecurity that followed, he stayed unexpectedly quiet. something in his lack of response made me think he knew more than he was letting on, but I did not press the matter.

                The second time came when I mentioned my trip to the quarry. When I came to the part about the odd old man, he interrupted me suddenly:  


                “So you have met Mister Paldock,” he said.

                “Paldock?” I asked. I had not given much thought to the hermit’s name.

                “Yes,” the priest said. “Archibald Paldock, who lives in the abandoned quarry. He’s from Varrock, used to be a scholar. An archaeologist, I believe.”

                A scholar? I recalled the bent, ragged recluse and his oddly erudite accent. Nothing about the man added up.

                “So you know him?” I asked aloud. “He did not appear very…forthcoming. He seemed quite frightened, to be honest.”

                “He is,” Father Ivan said. “I don’t know why, but he is. He’s a troubled soul, I’m afraid. Nevertheless, I visit him, and he does not drive me away. There is something about the mine that I don’t like,” he continued, his voice tightening, “I don’t know what it is either, but my instincts are usually very good on these things. But I’ll say this much: do not be afraid of Mr Paldock, no matter what he looks like or however strangely he acts. Help him if he comes to you. Please go on.”

                And so I told him the rest of the story, and he did not interrupt me anymore. After I had finished my account of the previous night, he was quiet for a while. Then he began to speak, but about a different subject than I had expected.

                “The ruins in your cellar, Mr Golves,” he said, and both his face and his voice were grave. “You mentioned them several times. Now, I’m not going to offer hypotheses on whether you had a break-in last night or not, but please, _do not_ decide that this is impossible yet. Stranger things have happened here, and happen every day. But regardless of this, if you don’t mind, I would like to see the door in your sub-basement. You suggest that it might open to the other side of the river. If there is — if it is of Vampyric make, I would recognize it. And I might be able to do something about any security concerns.”

                Though his request surprised me, I conceded at once. While my own curiosity about the basement ruins had been scholarly in nature, the Father clearly thought there might be something else of interest in them. Consequently, having told a maid two bring us a pair of lanterns, I escorted him to the cellar.

                After an infinitely long and monotonous descent, we found ourselves in the final room. The floor had been swept clean of debris, but otherwise the primeval, vaulted crypt was unchanged. The gigantic, double-elliptical door remained shut, and like before, an almost imperceptible stream of cool air issued from the crack in the middle. Without a word, the priest proceeded to examine the chamber — the angular carvings on the door, the strange stone obelisks — while I in turn observed him. As he proceeded, I could not help but notice that his face grew ever graver.

                It was then that I detected something else — from each pylon, a shallow, neatly fashioned recess ran to disappear under the door. I could not fathom what their function was, but I could not imagine them to be a purely decorative feature. What’s more, in the middle of the row was now visible a square, flat pedestal, exactly the right size and shape for a fifth obelisk. All this had been covered by rubble on my previous visit, and it occurred to me suddenly that in all likelihood Ormod had never seen any of it.

                From these musings I was brought out by Father Ivan’s voice.

                “No,” he said, sweeping his hand at the columns. “These are not of Vampyric origin. Or Hallowlandish. The decorations are wrong. The proportions are wrong. I’ve never seen anything like them, to be honest. And if there is a mechanism to open it, it is not one I am familiar with.” I pointed out the indentations and the plinth to him, and suggested my theory about a fifth obelisk. “It could be,” he admitted. “It would certainly fit. But regardless of that, whatever you do, please do not ignore your concerns about this.”

                Done with our inquest, we headed back up to the house. The journey felt much shorter this time, but I still was immensely relieved as we emerged again in the lamp-lit, whitewashed basement. The dead-rat stench about the stairs, I noticed, was stronger than ever. Perhaps more had died during the rain.

                As we returned to the entrance hall, Father Ivan finally broke his long silence.

                “The recent events at your house sound disquieting, Mr Golves,” he said, “and though I will not voice an opinion as to their cause, I advise you to keep your eyes open. Should there be another…occurrence, please send for me. We live in uncertain times. The massacre of my brothers…I don’t think this is the same agent. Nor do I believe that it has anything to do with Morytania, for the border has been blessedly quiet for the past year. But one should never forget that Silvarea has been inhabited since Pre-Edictian times, by all kinds of beings. And while I do not wish to frighten you, the dead do leave traces. As for the sub-basement, get someone to look at that door for you. An archaeologist, and preferably a mage. Should you try to open it, please let me know in advance. I have some experience with these things.”

                I assured him I’d do everything he said. By then, Father Ivan appeared to be about to leave, and so I summoned a maid to fetch his overclothes. However, instead of following the order right away, she — the Draynorian one again, I realized —  turned to address him.

                “Please, Father,” she said very quietly. “Before you go, I would like to know if— is it possible for us to attend service at the temple? On days off?” She looked nearly petrified, but the priest did not seem phased by being addressed by a servant.

                “We do not hold regular services, I’m afraid,” he said kindly, “but if you come to the temple on your day off, I can bless you, and you can pray there. In fact,” he continued, glancing at me, “If Mr Golves does not mind, we could pray right now. I understand your household has gone through a lot recently.” She would not look at me, but I saw the way her body tensed.

                “It is fine by me,” I said quickly, feeling — though without any justification — that I had been very gently mobbed. “Absolutely. Got tell the others, Maria, ask if they want to participate as well.” At my words, her small, worried face positively lit up. Dropping a quick curtsey and a thanks, she nearly rushed towards the east wing.

                “There is a chapel in the house,” I told the priest. “Not a very used one. I’m afraid I am not very religious.”

                “You don’t have to be very religious to pray every now and then,” said Father Ivan levelly.

                And so sometime later, we found ourselves gathered in the little chapel. It had not seen use since the days of the Gontamues, but a faint smell of beeswax and incense still hung in the air as a reminder of past gatherings. The entire household had come, and we barely managed to cram ourselves into the windowless chamber.

                While we watched, Father Ivan lit the old altar candles, which for years had waited for the faithful in their holders. As their familiar scent spread through the room, I realized I had not attended service in ages, and for a second feared that I had forgotten the words. But upon hearing his soft, pleasant voice begin the preliminary prayer, I found the liturgies remembered from a Lumbridge childhood come back to me, rising from the unperturbed depths of memory to bring with them a sense of safety and order:

                _“In the name of Saradomin, the wisest, the highest,_

_We pray to you today to guide our steps; that though we walk in darkness,_

_Your light may lead us and guide us; we shall neither falter nor be lost,_

_But find our way...”_

I closed my eyes, letting the evoked words wash over me in all their familiarity, and the comforting murmur of a dozen voices echoed my own.

                Fifteen minutes later, my visitor was soon getting into his travel clothes once more.

                “Are you headed back to Paterdomus, then?” I asked, as he laced up his leather galoshes.

                “No,” the priest replied, looking up, “there is still Mr Paldock to visit, and the guard at the quarry beacon. After that, I might head to the end of the pass and see if there are sentries or workmen about. While they do not technically speaking belong to my flock, I like to know what is going on around here.”

                “It is good that you do,” I said, as we walked together to the door. “And I am glad you came here today.” We stopped together on the sunlit porch, where the heady scent of wet earth lingered in the air. The last drops still trickled from the ancient eaves, and a lone, cautious thrush was chirping in one of the dying yews.

                 “I will visit again in the future,” Father Ivan replied. “I tend to make my rounds every ten days or so, but should anything emerge, please do not hesitate to send for me. And remember what I said about the door.”

                With those words he bade me good-bye, and descended the monumental bifurcated stairs to the gorge. At the foot of the steps the young man did what I had never seen a priest of Saradomin do, as he tucked the hem of his robe into his belt, and waded out into the muddy, weed-choked pass. The last I saw of him was the top of a broad-brimmed hat, which slipped between two glistening oak-trees and disappeared.


	27. 6th of Pentember, year one

               6th of Pentember, year one

               

               Today the road had finally dried up enough for the ox-cart to resume its usual rounds. Its arrival was greeted by cheers from the servants, and for all of us, I believe its reappearance — the re-institution of contact with the outside world — meant that in some way Gielinor was still on its axis. Before the driver continued towards Paterdomus I entrusted him with four letters, each meant to ensure that it stayed that way.

                Needless to say, Father Ivan’s visit had given me plenty to think about, and for the past few days, I had enjoyed the chance to ruminate on the recent events. I had reflected on my home, on its vulnerability and isolation. In fact, I had come to understand only now just how rashly I had acted on moving here so suddenly — with no security in place, no plan for emergencies, no connections of any kind with the handful of neighbours I had. If I was to stay — and I realized also that I deeply and acutely _did_ want to stay, that I lived in the mansion now, and that I had no intention of being driven out — things would have to change.

In due time, I had come up with a plan of action for the immediate future. To set it in motion, the first thing to do was to get in touch with certain old correspondents.

                The first letter was addressed to the good Father at Paterdomus. It was a short note in which I thanked him for his visit, and let him know that I was pursuing the course he had suggested.

                The second letter was for Wizard Aubury, Varrock’s resident mage. It was a commission for a set of teleportation tabs, directed to the hub in the city’s main square, and to be delivered to the mansion by a courier as soon as possible. In the post scriptum I also mentioned that I had in my possession certain relics, possibly of an occult nature, and enquired if he could at his leisure give an opinion on them.

                The third letter was addressed to Mr Stonemason. He remains in town, and apparently his expertise with restoration has become much sought after by the upper echelons of Varrock society. To him I wrote that a freak thunderball had destroyed one of the entrance hall windows, and that I would require a man with knowledge of antique ironwork to repair it. Should to location prove and obstacle, he could go five percent over the normal rate, but no higher.

The last letter was the longest. It was for my old friend, the curator of Varrock Museum, the Hon. Haig Halen. In it I requested that Haig contact the museum’s resident archaeologists, and ask one to come here to survey the cellar ruins. Together with the note I enclosed a selection of rudimentary pencil sketches I had made the previous day — one of the statues, one of the masonry in the furnace-room, one of the sealed door with its carved obelisks. I hoped they might provide some kind of a clue as to what I was dealing with, and perhaps help Haig select an expert to deal with the task.

***

                _The last-mentioned letter was in fact eventually passed on to Dr Terrence Balando, the dig site’s senior archaeologist, but by then it was all over. When much later I asked him about the drawings, he managed after some confusion to locate an old file for me. Encased in it was a series of carefully made sketches, drawn clearly by a man whose education had included the basics of art, but who had never gained much practice._

_“I could see their origin immediately,” Dr Balando told me as we studied the pictures together. “The faces on the statues, the door carvings, the caput avernici or demon-head on the furnace-room arch…it was unmistakeable. And had I known about all this — given what that unfortunate young man encountered in a nearby rift some years ago — I would have begged Mr Golves to leave the sub-cellar well alone.”_


	28. 11th of Pentember, year one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 28, with all the torn papers and paraphernalia.  
> The folded-up piece of paper was one of the heaviest part to write in the whole damned thing.

               11th of Pentember, year one

 

               I don’t know whether Mr Stonemason was the first of my correspondents to receive his letter, but he certainly was the first one to act. Today a workman came from   Varrock and replaced the grid on the smashed window. One more remainder of that awful night is gone, and with that the house seems to have taken another step towards a return to normalcy.

                Meanwhile, over the past days I have taken the opportunity to resume my scholarly work. I finally began my catalogue of the house’s later inhabitants — from Briaca Gulvas DeMarne to poor Lord Gontamue — and have produced a decent first draft for a chronicle. And though there are endless holes and mysteries in the story, the records provide enough information to make at least a simple dissertation accurate, and enough anecdotes to give it some flair.

               Having filed it away, I turned my attention to an item that I so carefully have neglected: the envelope found in the side-study. It has been sitting on the corner of my desk since that day, but so far, I have managed to put off touching it. The memory of that damned incident —I did not want to be reminded of it. Furthermore, given the recent events, I was not entirely sure whether I ought to do anything that might agitate me or inflame my imagination.

               Nonetheless, I know I cannot put the task off forever, and that the longer I wait, the greater my unfounded fear of the thing will grow. So, with everything else finished, I’m finally going to undo the ribbon of frayed velvet, and see what Ormod hid even from himself.

               ***

               Close to midnight . Darkness falls. I allowed myself to be carried away by my work again. Even as I periodically became aware of the lengthening shadows outside and the movement of the hands on their ivory face, I found myself unable to stop.

               As I had tried to avoid even thinking about that damned thing, I had developed no expectations as to its content. Nonetheless, I was surprised — let down? — relieved? — When upon opening it, I discovered it held only three small pieces of parchment, wrapped into a larger one that served as an envelope.

               The scraps had torn edges, and I could see right away that they fit together. After arranging them correctly, I could just as plainly see what the thing was. It was a spell-chart — a diagram for a magic spell, with markings for types and amounts of runestones, and the order and combination in which they should be cast.

               It was — of this I have no doubt — the healing spell the Tower wizards had developed for Ormod. However, even with my sorely lacking knowledge on the subject, I could see that something was not quite right about it.

                Like any decently educated man, I am of course familiar with the basics of magical theory. I can read a spell-chart, and I do recognize the more usual sequences of runes and their effects on each other. With some help from Greenzag’s _Encyclopaedia of Rune-spells and Enchantments,_ I was able to identify most of the elements in the spell. On this one, however, something was plainly missing. Something to bond the different sequences and make them act together rather than separately — I cannot quite explain. I see the flaw, but I can’t name it for certain.

               I shall have a better look at the scroll in the morning.

               ***

               Three o’clock. I could not contain myself. As I prepared to file my papers away for the night, I noticed suddenly that I had identified one of the symbols on the spell-chart incorrectly, and had consequently misinterpreted an entire sequence. Unable to leave the matter be until morning, I sat back down, opened my Greenzag again, and began to re-read the symbols.

               Two hours later my cipher’s work was finished, but the spell looked no more complete than it had before. I had taken apart a near-finished puzzle, reconstructed it with utmost care and diligence, and had ended up looking at a hole in the sky instead of the ground.

               Frustrated to the point where I felt almost personally offended by that fool’s incantation, I finally put the pieces away. At that point, however, something else caught my attention — something that I had so far entirely overlooked. It was the wrapping, the piece of parchment inside which the torn-up spell-chart had been preserved. It was only now that I noticed something about it: the inside was covered in tiny writing.

               When unfolded, the piece turned out to be rectangular, with two pairs of torn perforations along one long side. A page, ripped out of a notebook. The text was in pencil, tiny and even. Even at first glance, I could see the hand was neat and the lines straight, which placed it among Ormod’s older output.

               Tentatively, careful to not brush at the flaky graphite, I straightened it out, and began to read. Now, an hour later, I almost wish I hadn’t been able to make out those damned words.

_Wealth and civilisation are things no man should obtain until adulthood. In maturity they offer possibilities, but a child ought to never be brought up in contentment._

_He was weak. Soft and weak, much too much like his mother in spirit as he was in body. Gentle and kind-hearted. Timid. Qualities tolerable in a daughter, but unacceptable in a son, leave alone a first-born._

_At this point I can admit that I should have been more adamant on the question of his upbringing. But at the time I had enough trouble in my hands, and consequently I did not press the issue. On this matter, if only on this matter alone, the blame lies with me._

_So he grew in the house, entirely the concern of his mother. At an age when I had walked in my father’s footsteps tracking goblins and beasts, what was he? A soft-skinned tot, confined to the warmth of the hearth and the scent of wool-grease… safe in the room where my wife sat spinning; there at her feet he played on the shaggy rug._

_So he grew up, what little growing he seemed to do! Frail despite the good food I provided for him, quiet and anxious, whenever I’d find the time to visit them during the day, he’d flinch at the sight of me! Flinch at the sight of his father, at my outstretched hand! He’d flinch, and then break into a small, soft, girlish smile, a toy dangling from one hand._

_Sometimes I’d hear him chatter and laugh through the door. When I was present he hardly spoke, and almost never above a whisper._

_I despaired of him, even when I knew I did not have the time I could have devoted to setting him right. I tried to teach him to read, but could not instill anything beyond “A-B-C”. He would always squirm and shake and stutter, sneaking glances out of the study window, as if hoping for a sudden visitor to save him. Then, one autumn’s afternoon, my wife sat down with him, and by teatime, he could plod his way through the first paragraph of_ The Book of Wisdom.

_He turned out to be a fast reader, and was soon practicing his letters on a blackboard. I tried to encourage this, hoping that in time he could take over a clerical position in the trade, even if he’d need someone else to take care of the negotiations…_

_…and after she was gone, I’d see her in his face every time; in the wide, grey eyes, the look of fearful apprehension…a small, frail boy…that woman’s foolishness…too weak to live._

               This is all that Ormod Gulvas had to say about his only son.

               It reminded me of something else, something I had read previously — I had to dig up the page where I had copied the passage.

 _“…the door whose carved symbols mock my plight, mock me even as the voices speak, all the voices together and the small, clear, pleading one above them all.”_ He wrote in the final throes of his madness. When I read the passage for the first time, I could not understand what it referred to. Now that I know what it is about — by Saradomin, I cannot comprehend the horror of it. The hated child, “too weak to live”, the “small, pleading voice”, the absence of a cause of death in the parish records…it all falls together, too clear to ignore, too atrocious to contemplate.

               Three forty-five. It took me a while to understand what I was hearing. The rhythmic beat, the soft, whooshing hum so all-permeating it becomes an absence of sound, the rush of blood in a dying man’s ears —

                The rain has started again.


	29. 12th of Pentember, year one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 29, in which the trouble returns.

               12th of Pentember, year one

           

               I had already convinced myself that this was over. Furthermore, I had already convinced myself that there was a sound explanation for everything that has happened. However, this is the case no more, and what has happened this time cannot be brushed aside with excuses.

                Lumthorne has been hurt. To be precise, it appears he was attacked.

                This much I know: I finally headed upstairs around four in the morning. Within five minutes I was asleep, though even then, the unremitting thrum of the rain bled over into my restless dreams. The thrum, and the storm-wind in the chimneys, which kept turning into the angry murmur of disembodied voices around my bed.

                Therefore, when a few hours later the butler appeared in the bedroom, I could not differentiate between vision and reality for a while, but thought I was experiencing some dream recalling the day before Father Ivan’s visit. Then, while I was still groggy, still faint, his fat, moustachioed face slowly swam into focus, and little by little I understood what he was saying.

                 As the servants had been eating their breakfast in the basement kitchen, there had out of nowhere sounded a loud thump and crash from the floor above, as if something heavy had fallen from a great height. It wasn’t much past five in the morning, which meant that by all logic the east wing should have been empty. Lumthorne — who in these matters has always reacted quickly — had not bothered to wait for the approval of his superior, but had gone to investigate the matter himself, armed with a poker.

               He had, the butler told me, got to the ground floor, where everything seemed to be in order. Then he had heard another sound, which he had not specified — something from the tower. He had called out once, but receiving no answer, he had entered the tower. He had been climbing up the spiral stairs, when suddenly his candle had gone out, and he had lost his footing.

              “He fell all the way down the stairs, Mr Golves,” the butler explained to me, almost in hysterics. “He fell, but he said…Lumthorne said he was _pushed_.”

               He had tumbled down two flights of stairs, but had miraculously survived with a twisted leg. By then, others — who had followed in his steps after gathering courage for a few minutes — had found him. Lumthorne had allowed them to carry him to the guest bedroom, but had refused to even lie down before the butler had gone to fetch me.

               Five minutes later, dressed for nominal propriety and armed with the cutlass I had never taken back to the armoury, I made my way to the guest quarters.

                The butler had not been entirely truthful about my manservant’s condition. He was laid in bed, with his leg on a cushion. His lower lip was split, and a barely-dried-up gash ran across one temple. It had bled like head wounds do, and the pillow under his head was stained crimson. His right hand rested on his chest, the wrist swollen double.

               “Mr Golves,” he greeted me, speaking with some difficulty. If he could see the shock on my face, he never showed it in any way. “I’m afraid our old problem may have returned.”

               Then he told me his version of the story.

               After hearing the crashing sound —which he described as having come from the wall-locked “structural” feature of Mr Stonemason’s — he had headed up the stairs without consulting the others. Had he waited for a permission from the butler, he explained, “They would still be holding the assembly right now.”

               If they were still holding the assembly right now, I remarked, Lumthorne would have two working legs.

               “I would, Mr Golves,” he said, “and we’d have even less of an idea about what’s going on in the house.”

                He had quickly checked the east wing ground floor rooms and the hall. All windows and doors had been closed; nothing had been out of place. Then, as he had been going through the latches on the dining room windows — all securely shut — he had heard something from above. At this point, he hesitated for the first time.

                “This will sound quite outlandish,” he said. “And I don’t care much for saying anything that’ll make you think I’m telling tall tales.”

                “I have always trusted your judgement,” I replied. “I do so now.”

                “Well, Mr Golves,” he said, “I hope you’ll still do so after this.” He faltered for a few seconds before continuing with uncharacteristic restraint. “The sound,” he said, “it came from the tower. That I could tell right away. It was — Mr Golves, it was a voice. I could hear it clearly —”

                At this point, a chilling dread crept over me. For a short and terrible moment I was certain that he would tell me he had heard a scream, or the sound of a wall being knocked. Therefore, I was almost relieved when he finished the sentence.

               “It was muttering. A man’s voice, cursing and muttering to itself.”

                Following the sound, Lumthorne had crept to the tower.  He had been halfway up the spiral staircase, when two things had happened almost simultaneously. First, a sudden gust of air had blown out his candle. Then, as he had frozen on spot in the darkness, someone or something had shoved him hard on the chest.

               “I can’t say what it was, Mr Golves,” he said. “But I heard someone draw breath in the dark.”

               The tower, when the others had gone to inspect it, had been empty.

               Despite the peculiarity of the story, I do not doubt his words. He’s not one — and I am talking about a man who has been in my service for over thirty years —to make up  fantastic tales to cover up for his own clumsiness or mistakes, of that I am certain. Furthermore, even if no-one else ever heard the muttering voice, they had all heard the crash.

                  I ordered another search of the house, but was scarcely surprised when it turned up nothing. There are no outsiders here with us as far as anyone can tell, yet someone or something attacked one of my staff.

               Unable to do anything else, I ordered the kitchen servants in the basement, and told the rest to stick together in the hall. No-one, I emphasised, was to go anywhere alone.

                Lumthorne remains laid up in the guest bedroom, much as it enrages him to be of no use in such an hour. I had one of the maids stay with him, and told them to keep the door to the hall open at all hours. Though his injuries do not look like they will require the attentions of a doctor, I would be infinitely more comfortable if I knew when we can resume contact with the outside world.

                Behind the windows, the rain goes on.

                ***

                Three o’clock.

               I have been in my study since the morning, staring at Ormod’s spell-chart. I am too lethargic to think coherently, but I cannot go back to bed with the situation as it is.

               I have little desire to look at the madman’s papers, now that I know what he did, but the damned spell bothers me. As soon as the occasion presents itself, I shall have Wizard Aubury take a look at it. Perhaps I ought to mail a copy of it to the Tower. After a century of magical development, would they be able to complete it?

               It troubles me in an uncanny way. The perfect sequences, the way it is plain how they ought to interact, and then the blank space. The missing element.

               I brought up a small box of runestones from the gallery room. I am no mage, but arranging them in the casting order helps me think…the damned thing nags a tune in my head.

                ***

               Six o’clock, though for the darkness outside you wouldn’t know it.

               Half an hour ago, a maid brought me tea. Mrs Fairweather had baked scones unbidden, which is her way of telling people to soldier on.

                For a second, though, something about the sight of the neatly set tray on my desk bothered me. A teapot and a cup; a plate of beautiful, golden-brown, still-warm scones; a little pot of jam and another one of butter, what could have been less ominous?  It was something half-forgotten and dreamlike, nothing about the thing itself but something elusively associated with it — the redberry jam! — _“I was helping her with the jam”; the girl with her red-stained apron and sticky hands —_ and the memory of that damned incident in the closet came back to me in a flood.

                “Mr Golves?”

               It took me a few seconds to realize someone had said my name. The maid who had brought my tea was standing by the door, eyeing me with almost impolite caution. Again, there was something at the edge of my tired mind, begging for my preoccupied attention —

                — and in that moment I realized that it was _her — the maid —_ the same girl who had heard the scream, the same one who had seen the mist rise through the furnace-room floor, the same who — _godsdamnit —_ had seen the white-haired figure in the kitchen.

               She had been involved in every one of the incidents.

                And now, by the look of it, there was something she wanted to tell me.

                “Maria,” I said. That was her name. It came back to me in another flash. An old memory; the housekeeper mentioning “Maria, the new maid-of-all-work” moving with us to Silvarea. She had contemplated staying and finding other work in Lumbridge.

                 “Mr Golves,” she repeated. She glanced about, as if looking for a way to escape. “I — I need to speak with you.”

                 “You can speak freely,” I told her.

                 “It’s about what happened, Mr Golves,” the girl replied. “All the things that have happened since we came here, starting with those monks.”

                 “There is nothing shameful in being afraid,” I replied.

                 “I did not want to move here, Mr Golves.” Her words came out in a blurt. “Not just because it is so far away, but because of _where it is._ I’m from Draynor; I know about these things…when I was little, people used to disappear all the time…the thing — _the thing in the manor_ …I was afraid there would be something like that here.”

                 “I’m afraid I do not quite follow,” I said. In fact, I did not follow at all, but I wanted to know what she was after, and so I nodded for her to go on.

                “Someone hurt Bil—, I mean Lumthorne, sir. Someone did, I can’t believe he’d ever lie about a thing like that. Someone attacked him and the house was searched and again there’s no-one to be found... The door’s locked and so are the windows, but what about the basement _,_ Mr Golves?” Tears were beginning to fall down her cheeks. “You said that no-one could have entered the house, but what about the basement? The sub-basement? Mrs Fairweather says it goes down floor after floor —Mr Golves, _do you know what’s in the basement?”_

               I was struck by the sudden outburst. Not cross, but surprised. Furthermore, though I did not indicate this in any manner, her words echoed certain restless, fearful thoughts that had repeatedly crossed my mind in the dark hours of the night.

              “Yes, Maria,” I said, trying to sound calm and reassuring. “I know what is in there. The sub-basement extends down some seven or six levels, most of it nothing but stairs and landings, and ends in a sealed door of indeterminable age.”

                She remained silent for a while, staring at her feet. Then:

                “So I was told,” she said quietly, all daring suddenly gone. “That there’s a sealed door. But sealed from who, Mr Golves? From people coming from which direction?” Then, at once her own words seemed to catch up with her, and before I could utter an answer, she had rushed out of the room.

                I did not go after her. I have no desire to reprimand a girl for breaking down in such a situation. What’s more, it was a good question.

               ***

                Seven-fifty.

               The rain has become a violent downpour. A few minutes ago, I heard the first rumbles of distant thunder. Far away, but approaching.

                I have had some time to reflect Maria’s words. In fact, I have had time to reflect on several things, even if I would be able to reflect on them more clearly had I slept for longer than two hours last night.

               Firstly, tomorrow I’m going to have the damned “structural” thing knocked open, for my peace of mind if nothing else. Second, I shall have the same done to the shaft in the middle of the basement stairs. If that infernal smell is dead rats indeed, I want them gone.

               And finally, I’ll get the same workmen to try and open up that damned door. Take pickaxes to it, if they have to, get a wizard to blow it up if brute force won’t work. Whatever is behind it has been kept from me for too long.

                Third roll of thunder. This time preceded by lightning, if only a faint one. The storm is drawing nearer.

               There is something else beyond my window, too. The visibility is all but gone. I can barely see the skeletal yew or the railing on the precipice, something blurs the view, as if the rain has become an impenetrable haze— rising; rising in uncurling coils like long, thin fingers —

                _The white mist._

 


	30. A Note by the Editor

This marks the end of the reliable entries in the diary.

                What follows are a few, final, crazed fragments, written by a man who — unbeknownst to himself — had already inhaled a lethal dose of toxic gases. And while a few of the chronicled events (such as Maria’s flight and Ingram’s conversation with me), did indeed happen, for the large part they describe diseased, nightmarish hallucinations and should be treated by the reader as such.

                By the time I arrived on the scene, the so-called mist had certainly evaporated, and only a curious, chemical smell lingered in the air as a reminder. The front door opened easily, and I can testify that neither intruders nor Abyssal horrors roamed the long corridors of the mansion. As for the sub-basement, when I left it, the the ancient door at its end was most definitely securely sealed, the way it had been since the days of Zarosian Senntisten.


	31. Two Hours to Midnight

Two hours to midnight.

Having nowhere else to go, I have returned to my study. The door will not keep it away, but at least it gives me enough false sense of security to think.

— The others have dispersed, each rushing their separate way…we fled, we all fled when we saw him —

Upon hearing the scream, I followed it to the entrance hall to see the mist rise through the floor.

The white mist, rising from below, surging and eddying, until the pillar reached through the roof and broke up to envelope the house in its shroud —

— And then _him_. — He emerged from nothing, full of vengeance and wrath; coalescing out of the haze in front of our eyes, _from wherever he’s hidden all this damned time, for I understand now that he has been here with us all along._

— I saw him. I saw him in a flash of lightning, in the darkened hall after the chandelier candles failed —

— Just as I saw him that awful night, standing above me; just as I had seen him look down on me from so many —  why couldn’t I see it? What kept me from detecting the semblance in those hatchet features? My ignorance has doomed us all.

After all, there can be no mistake of what he wants.

We are beyond the grace of the gods now. May the guardians of Noumenon have pity on our souls.

***

Ten-fifty.

The door is stuck. Right before the mist descended, the girl slipped out in a mad dash…before anyone could rush after her, we found ourselves sealed in. The windows won’t budge either; there is nothing but swirling darkness behind the rain-spattered panes. The storm is upon us, the storm and the howling in the chimneys —

The screams. By the Void, I can hear their screams; the screams and the distant racing footsteps that even the crashing thunder cannot drown out —

***

There is one more option. If I can make it to the basement — if I can only make it to the basement — there are tools in the store-rooms.

The storm is right on top of the mansion.

_Flash-two-three — he’s on the floor above me._

I shall take the box of runestones, too.

***

Two past midnight.

If I could ask for a mercy before my death, I would beg to be granted forgetfulness. For what man, what mind, could bear to see what I have seen, to have witnessed what I have witnessed — to know what I know of the horrors that lurk under the surface of this world.

In my hopeful foolishness I ventured down, down, far below into the impenetrable night. Wilfully, I went to the forgotten shadows, which should have better been left to sweet oblivion…the place where even the rats won’t descend.

  I treaded through the endless, vaulted hallways of Raurgic masonry, through the whispering dark… The cells had become tombs to a throng of nightmare horrors…I could not tell by the shape of the skeletons what each thing had been in life, but I could see none had died peacefully.

_—and to see in such a place such an innocent, helpless creature; that small, emaciated face —_

_—she never said a word, but only nodded when I placed my hand on the glowing panel._

The amorphous, Abyssal horror chased me back to the house.

I slammed the basement hatch shut behind me, but what good are wood and iron against such a monstrosity?

***

My watch has stopped. The hands have frozen at thirteen past three.  I don’t know how long ago that was.

Which one will get to me first? Him or that nightmare thing?

I have locked myself in my bedroom. I do not have the courage to go out and face the danger, intolerable as the wait is.

Nor do I have what it takes to go to the bathroom and make use of my straight razor, no matter how sharp Lumthorne has kept it.

_Flash, two, three four, —_

***

There is someone else in the house.

I can hear them clearly — footsteps, creeping down the hall.

A door creaking — It swings open and slams shut. The footsteps draw nearer — I can hear the clinking of keys —

— I caught it earlier on! Someone rattling the bolt at the end of the corridor...whoever it is has found a way in.

By now, I cannot be certain what is real.

 _Saradomin._ It’s a stranger — a woman. I don’t know how she has ended up here, but she has picked a fine hour to pay a visit.

She’s calling me by my name through the door. She sounds human enough, but after everything that has happened —

I did not ask how she got in, but beseeched her to get out if she could. But she won’t listen, damn it all to the Abyss, she won’t listen, but keeps asking questions —

— About the basement, about _him,_ about the others —

— I dare not ask her of the others. I can hear the answer in her voice, and I don’t want to know.

She says she’ll be back shortly.

No, don’t —

— The door swings at the end of the corridor, swings and slams shut —

—she’s gone.

I’m alone.

***

I don’t know how long I have been here.

A minute ago, I heard another scream. A man’s voice, which cried out in terror as footsteps rushed towards the hallway door, and ended — The horror! It ended in sudden silence, as something heavy thumped against the wall.

***

It is coming for me. It is coming for us all.

It began in a low rumble. For a second, I thought it an earthquake — the ground was shaking, as if whatever horrors lurk below were trying to break free, or else trying to collapse the house to drag us all to the ancient night —

— The roar intensified, making the panes shake in the latticework, until finally I could hear glass shatter somewhere far off. Every candle went out in the room, and an unholy wailing filled the air;  a daemon wind, as if every soul in the Underworld was being dragged to the ravenous beasts.

 The Void has been torn open. Its horrors walk this earth.

***

_The groan…I can hear the groans of the abomination…it is in the house._

_Something else. Something in the corridor. Not the thing. Not the woman._

_I hear no footsteps, but I can hear the breathing. The long, rasping death-rattles of a man on the point of suffocating._

_Where does it come from?_

_Nothing shows in the crack above the threshold._

_Nothing shows, but I know it is behind the door...the breathing is becoming louder._

_I can hear it._

_I know what I will hear next._

_Tap. Tap. Tap._


	32. Editor's Afterword

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Afterword, in which everything is explained.

                Editor's Afterword

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

                In these inexplicable words ends the diary of Ingram Golves.

                The final entry, one can infer, was made sometime before six in the morning on the 13th of Pentember, year one of the Sixth Age. It was almost dawn. In less than two hours’ time the torrential rain would cease, and the storm-clouds over Silvarea would part to let in daybreaks’ pale, faltering light.

                By then — by the time I unlocked the door to the master bedroom — Ingram’s body was already cold.

                Disjointed and incoherent as the last items are, a tentative timeline of his last hours can be reconstructed from them. When coupled with what was learned later — by myself, the coroner, and Judge Lambare — one can piece together a more reasonable account of the night’s events.

                Evidently, around eight in the evening on the twelfth of Pentember, there occurred at Gulvas Mansion a leak of subterranean gas, which in in all likelihood originated from the mansion’s deep, ancient sub-cellar. This was a second incident of its kind, but clearly a more major one than the previous, for it was only now that the effects of the substance became apparent.

                The unknown gas —the “white mist” — would shortly prove to be not only lethal in large doses, but also potently hallucinogenic. Judging by Ingram’s notes, the victims spent their final hours trapped in terrifying visions, believing themselves to be under attack by nameless, fantastic forces. And from Ingram’s case, it is clear that these visions were influenced and shaped by prior fears: the massacre in the pass, the supposed intruder, his morbid dread of the sub-basement. Consequently, one does not have to wonder about the state in which the mansion’s inhabitants were found — dead or dying, dispersed throughout the house, with three suicides among the casualties.

                Somewhere in the fray, Maria Miller had managed to stumble out of the house. Though badly affected, she was able to make her way westwards through the rain, until coming across a troop of Varrockian soldiers posted at Silvarea’s gate. Fearing for her safety, two of them escorted her to the Jolly Boar Inn — and there the story circles back to beginning.

***

                To round things up, at last.

                Over the following few days, the house was full of soldiers. I was present myself, as were the judge and the coroner, who after a thorough inquiry pronounced the deaths accidental. With the investigation finally concluded, the bodies were brought out in their shrouds, and laid on a pair of ox-carts bound for the city.

                There were altogether fourteen of them, a number that came as a surprise to us all.

                Ingram Golves, the master of the house, was found on the floor of his bedroom. Judging by the blue-black discolorations on his body, he had perished of a heart attack.

                Mercy Fairweather, cook to the previous, had under the influence of hallucinogenic vapours thrown herself in the basement furnace.

                Two more members of the house’s domestic staff were discovered in the bathroom of the servants’ quarters, where both had slit their throats.

                The other six had succumbed to the gas. Among them was William Lumthorne, Ingram’s valet, who for a man in his state had showed considerable vigour by barricading himself in the guest bedroom before perishing in its bed.

                Beside these ten, on the overburdened hearses were laid four other cadavers, the grim harvest yielded by a further investigation of the mansion.

                Following the advice of Ingram’s journal, the soldiers tore open several closed-off areas in the house, where they made a series of gruesome discoveries. In what good Mr Stonemason had called a “structural feature” on the ground floor — in reality a secret room — were found three desiccated corpses, all of whom exhibited dreadful injuries. What remained of their clothes dated them back to the early Fifth Age, which caused myself and the coroner to deem them earlier victims of Ormod’s temper. _“The carpenter…no more”,_ as the perpetrator put it himself.

                Finally, one last mystery was solved when the well in the centre of the basement stairs was opened up. Inside the structure — around which Ingram had repeatedly smelled something decomposing — were uncovered the badly mangled remains of a young, unidentified man. He could not have been dead for long —since the end of Raktuber, perhaps the night of the thirty-fourth. He had evidently climbed into the shaft through a secret trapdoor on the first floor, but had lost his footing on the ladder, falling down some thirty feet and breaking his spine in the process. On his person were found a set of professional-looking lockpicks, together with some items of jewellery from the gallery room collection. Under, around, and over him were piled an innumerable multitude of dead rats; the oldest mummified, the freshest half-rotten and very fat.

***

                Once the investigation was finished, there was little to do. The cellar door was sealed, the bodies put in the ground. Maria Miller — the sole survivor from the house — returned to her family in Draynor Village, and has since refused to discuss the event.

                The only remaining question was to whom Gulvas Mansion would be passed, a matter which employed Ingram’s lawyers for several weeks, no doubt making these esteemed gentlemen considerably richer in the process. At last, after a thorough scrutiny of his fragmented family tree and the unnecessarily complicated inheritance laws of Misthalin, it was pronounced that the rightful heir to his entire fortune was one Mr Winsborough Demarn, these days a resident of Musa Point, Karamja.

                Sadly, upon being contacted, Mr Demarn — who had left Misthalin in 160 due to a “misunderstanding” of an undisclosed nature (reportedly an embezzlement charge) — responded that he had no interest in his inheritance, that his cousin’s lawyers could use their own judgement in the matter, and that he did not wish to be approached about the matter again.

                A second letter was sent to persuade him, but was returned unopened with the words _“Recipient not at this address”_ scrawled on the corner. Ingram’s legal representatives report that they continue their search for him, but have had little success.

                In the meantime, the house has once more been left without a master. While the deaths did initially provoke significant curiosity in the locals — with self-styled detectives poking about in the Pass every few days, each with his own theory about “the murderer” — over the summer months general interest in the case waned, and Gulvas Mansion slowly reverted back to its shunned, forgotten status.

                During that time, I saw it pertinent to stay around as a custodian, if only to keep the nosier vigilante investigators from engaging in exploratory burglary. Now that the last of them are gone, I continue to reside in the mansion, keeping guard over this valuable, historically significant estate. I have no doubt that the future owner shall condone my decision.

                Here the story ends for me. Ingram’s journal, having done its duty, rests safely in a lock-box with a few other piece of relevant paraphernalia. Tomorrow the box — together with this manuscript in a sealed envelope — will find itself travelling towards the city, the former bound for a bank vault, the latter for a typesetter’s workshop. When I next see these words, it will be on a neatly laid-out page of a printed book; fresh from the press, bound in sturdy calico.

                                In it will be contained a cautionary tale. It will be the tale of a man at a remote house, a thief in the night with an ill-advised hiding place, a basement dug too deep into volatile ground, and the hypnotic effects of isolation and insomnia — but nothing more, for nothing more ever took place at Gulvas Mansion.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is welcome.


End file.
